



i i I 



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I X 

w>^ w 




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^mi^i^m^ 



THE LETTERS 



OF 



JUNIUS 



Plttt^.Yl. 




irv his correApo>i^eri<e mth 



JUNIUS; 



INCLUDING 



LETTERS 



BY THE SAME WRITER, UNDER OTHER SIGNATURES 
(NOW FIRST COLLECTED). 

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 

HIS CONFIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

WITH 

MR WILKES, 

AND HIS PRIVATE LETTERS ADDRESSED 

TO 

MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



A PRELIMINARY ESSAY, NOTES, FAC-SIMILES, &c. 

Stat iiominis umbra. 

LONDON AND NEW YORK : 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS. 

1878. 






CLAY AND TAYLOE, PRINTEKS. 



48 6555 

AUG 27 1942 






PREFACE 



Every reader is acquainted with the fruitless efforts which have been made to 
sohe the mystery of the authorship of the Letters of Junius. These inquiries, wliich 
may be said to have begun with the pubhcation of the first letter in 1769, are still 
being prosecuted in 1874, and will probably continue to amuse the leisure of the 
literavy world ior many years to come. To these speculations we have nothing new 
to contribute. We have no theories, we have no opinions. It seems to us that 
the fog in which the yunian paternity is wrapped is just as thick now as it was 
when our forefathers were scratching their wigs and whispering their suspicions to one 
another. Dimly -burning lanterns are waved amid this fog and cast an illumination of 
some few inches in circumference around their blinded and energetic bearers ; but it is 
not too much to say that in spite of the prodigious efforts that have been made to prove 
Sir PhiUp Francis the author oFthe Letters, scarcely a fact in support of his pretensions 
has been advanced which might not be matched with one equally convincing in support 
of the claims of Dyer and Burke, of Boyd and Dunning, of the Duke of Portland and 
Lord George Sackville, of Earl Temple and Single-speech Hamilton. 

Who was Junius'? All are agreed, whoever he was, that he was intimately acquainted 
with the inner and secret life of the War-office ; that he was intimately acquainted with 
the inner and secret hfe of the Foreign-office ; that he was about the court ; 1 that if he 
were not a member of the Lower House, he was frequently present at the debates held 
there ; that at one time he hated and at another time admired and defended Lord 
Chatham ; that he had a great personal kindness for Woodfall, his printer ; that he was 
a man of brilliant parts, immense courage, and dogged perseverance ; who did an in- 
calculable amount of good and not a little harm ; who crushed the Duke of Grafton 
and insulted the Earl of Mansfield ; who was a scarecrow of violence to court-jobbers 
and back-stairs officials, and who conquered the law with his libels. But the man 
himself is not less absolutely unknown to us than the Man in the Iron Mask. It 
is perfectly intelligible that a great literary mystery of this kind should exercise a pecu- 
liar fascination upon the mind. The profound learning of Bentley checked a con- 
troversy which Boyle's elegance, decorated with Atterbuiy's tinsel, might have kept alive 
to the days of Porson. The forgeries of Macpherson advocated by the well-meaning 

^ Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 71. 'Garrick, dining with me, told me that having been at Woodfall's, 
he learnt that the Junuis of that day would be the last, upon which, hurr3'ing to St James's, he 
reported this intelligence to several people. Next day he received a letter from Jiaiius, inform- 
ing him that if he used such freedoms, a letter to him should appear. From this Garrick con- 
cluded that the author was about the court.' 

b 



PREFACE. 



but pedantic Blair was a sin that descended through several generations and made a 
controversialist of Goethe long after the absurd cause had been abandoned on both 
sides the Tweed, The internal evidence against the antiquity of the Rowley poems 
fortunately overpowered the clever reasoning of Tyrwhitt ; but William Ireland, backed 
by Parr, Kemble, and Croft, might long have perplexed the predecessors of Mr Payne 
Collier, had not the youth's conscience hastened to the rescue of a long-suffering public. 
It is otherwise with Junius. He is an incomparable enigma. Men of the greatest 
genius have fastened upon this abstraction and proved him — a mystery. It is our in- 
tention to advert briefly to some of the speculations which have been directed towards 
the identification of this ' airy nothing ' with various public characters. 

It M'as Sir Joshua Reynolds' opinion that Samuel Dyer was the author of the letters, 
and that he was assisted by Burke and Burke's cousin William. Dyer is represented as . 
a man of great attainments, but so modest and reserved that he would frequently sit 
silent in company for an hour, and seldom speak unless appealed to ; when he generally 
showed himself master of the subject that was under discussion. ^ Through the influence 
of his friend Chamier,^ Dyer procured some post connected with the army ; and yujihis 
in his second letter exhibits an intimate acquaintance with the then state of the War 
Department. Dyer was a complete master of Fi'ench and Italian, and had spent some 
years abroad : and one of his first literary attempts was a translation of ' Les Mosurs.' 
In Jiudus there are one or two gallicisms ; he was apparently much used to French 
reading, and when he had occasion to divide his paragraphs numerically, he adopted 
the French mode, i°, 2", &c. It was long supposed that Junius died soon after his 
papers were discontinued. Dyer died shortly after the letters had ceased to appear. 
William Burke went to his lodgings immediately after his death, and tore many of his 
friend's papers into minute fragments. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw these broken papers 
scattered all over the room. This hypothesis, it was held, explained many circum- 
stances that had before puzzled all the conjecturers. It accounted for the prompt and 
intimate knowledge that Junius exhibited in his letters after the event or whatever else 
he discussed. Dyer lived on such friendly terms with Burke that from him he could 
learn everything that was going on or that was even meditated. It accounted also for 
the novelty of the style ; and Burke's corrections and interpolations are everywhere dis- 
eernible in those passages the resemblance of which to his known style caused him to be 
regarded by many as the writer of the letters. 

The notion, indeed, that if Burke were not the author he was very largely concerned 
in the manufacture of the letters, was long current in Burke's own family. This im- 
pression was entirely dispelled by the publication of Junius letters to Mr Granville. 
If further evidence were needed in refutation of the conjecture, it might be found in the 
great improbability of a man of Burke's fine character countenancing anything that 
bore severely upon the Duke of Grafton, who, to quote Sir James Prior, ' while a minister 
exhibited kindly feeling and recommended him strongly to office under Lord Chatham 
"as the readiest man upon all points in the House." ' ^ But the most convincing of 
all arguments is Burke's spontaneous denial of the authorship. ' I should have believed 
Burke,' says Johnson, ' to be Juyiiush^cdMSt I know no man but Burke who is capable 
of writing these letters ; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would have 

^ Maloniana, iig. 

^ Anthony Chamier. He is frequently mentioned In Boswcll. 

3 Life of Edmond Malone, 423. See also the same writer's 'Life of Burke,' vol. i. p, 186. 



PREFACE. vii 

been different had I asked him if he was the author; a man so questioned as to an 
anon3aTious pubHcation, may think he has a right to deny it.'i And yet as late as 1775 
Johnson still professed his belief in Burke's authorship. 'Johnson said that he looked 
upon Burke to be the author of Junius, and that though he would not take him contra 
mundum, yet he would take him against any man. Baretti was of the same mind.' " 
Grattan was also of this opinion. ' Three persons are considered as having the best 
claim to the authorship of yunius Letters — Gibbon, Hamilton, and Burke. . . I incline 
to think that Burke was Jimius.' 

Gibbon is out of the question ; but some good arguments have been advanced in 
support of William Gerard Hamilton. ' I really suspect Single-speech Hamilton to 
have been the author from the following circumstance,' says Walpole. ' One day at a 
house wliere he happened to be, he repeated the contents of that day's Junius ; while 
in fact the printer had delayed the publication till next day. Hamilton was also 
brought forward by Lord Holland ; and it is remarkable that Lord Holland, though very 
open to censure, is not once mentioned.' ^ Wraxall, after fully weighing all circum- 
stances, gives it as his conviction that Hamilton was Junius. ' I well remember,' says 
Mrs Piozzi, 'when they (the letters) were most talked of — and N. Seward said, "How 
the arrov/s of Jimius were sure to wound and likely to stick." "Yes, sir," replied Dr 
Johnson, "yet let us distinguish between the venom of the shaft and the vigour of the 
bow," at which expression Mr Hamilton's countenance fell in a manner that to me 
betrayed the author. Johnson repeated the expression m his next pamphlet— and 
Junius wrote no more' * In Malone's opinion, Hamilton was quite capable- of having 
written these letters, but he finds his style very different. ' He would have still more 
point than they exhibit, and certainly more Johnsonian energy.' Moreover he was all 
his life distinguished for political timidity and indecision, and dared not, even under a 
mask, have entered into a decided warfare with persons whom he might find necessary 
afterwards to him as colleagues. ' This Mr Hamilton is extremely tall and handsome,' 
writes Miss Burney, ' has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority ; is intelligent, 
dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his conversational 
powers had I not been previously prejudiced against him by hearing that he is infinitely 
wilful, double, and crafty. ' ^ These very qualities are held as proving decisively that he 
was not the author of the letters : for, says Malone, ' he could not have divested himself 
of the apprehension of a discovery, having long accustomed his mind to too refined a 
policy, and being very apt to suppose that many things are brought about by scheme 
and machination which are merely the oftspring of chance.' ^ 

One of the last persons we should expect to find among the number of the suspected, 
is Glover, the author of 'Leonidas.' What reason is given for beheving this poet 
Junius we have not discovered. Anderson in his Life of Glover makes no reference to 
the accusation. His speeches printed in the 'London Magazine' and 'Annals of 
Europe ' are called byhis biographer elegant and spirited : but his prose is not the prose 
of Junius. He was accredited with a great knowledge of pubhc affairs, and his 'in- 

- Boswell, 625. 

' Dr T. Campbell's Diary, published in 1854. 

3 Walpoliana, 71. 

^ Mrs Piozzi's Autobiography, by Playward, vol. i. 343. Johnson attacked Jtmitis in his 
tract on the Falkland Islands, and it is ludicrous to read of him delighting his imagination with 
the thoughts of having destroyed his opponent. 

5 Diary and Letters, vol. i. 247. 

6 Maloniana, 419. 



PREFACE. 



formation concerning trade and commerce pointed him out to the merchants of London 
as a proper person to conduct their appHcation to Parhament on the subject of the neg- 
lect of their trade. He accepted the office, and in summing up the evidence gave very 
striking proofs of his oratorical powers.'^ Glover died in November, 1785, aged 73. 

The pretensions of Delolme and the Duke of Portland are ridiculed by Lord Brougham . 
He points out that the sole ground for presuming the authorship of the Duke lies in the 
interest betrayed by Junius in the question respecting the honour of Inglewood Forest, 
which, he says, occupied the attention at that time of every man who talked or wrote 
upon politics. Delolme he characterizes as an extremely feeble writer, and one uncon- 
sciously ignorant of most constitutional points. ^ Little is to be said in support of the 
candidature of Lord Chatham, Dunning, Lord Temple, or Lord Sackville, though an 
ingenious attempt was made to identify one or the other of these last-mentioned noble- 
men with Junius by M. Charles de Remusat in the ' L'Angleterre au Dixhuitieme 
Siecle.' 

We now come to Sir' Philip Francis, on whom it is proper that we should bestow the 
greatest share of our attention. His claims have been advocated by many distinguished 
men ; and by a large and intelligent class his identity with Jzinius is considered 
proven. For our part, we shall avoid offering any opinion on the subject one way or 
the other ; we propose merely to present, in as clear a light as we can, the reasons ad- 
vanced by those who believe and by those who deny Sir Philip Francis to be the author 
of the Letters. For this purpose we shall epitomize the reasoning pursued by Lord 
Brougham in 1817,^ which we believe may be held fairly to express the opinions still 
preserved by the believers in the Franciscan theory. 

Lord Brougham first deals with the question of internal evidence, and transcribes a 
few specimens of Francis's writings, which he considers amply justify the assertion that 
the author of Junius, whoever he might be, was not a person of greater talents than 
Francis. He then submits certain extracts from a speech delivered in 1797 by Francis, 
and exclaims : ' We humbly conceive that the most careless reader must be struck, not 
only with the general ability and eloquence of all these passages, but with their extra- 
ordinary coincidence with the Letters of Junius in all their most remarkable charac- 
teristics. The boldness and even fierceness of 'the tone— the studied force and energy 
of the diction— the pointed and epigrammatic cast of the style— the concise and fre- 
quent metaphors— and the mixture of the language of business and affairs, with a cer- 
tain scholastic elegance and elaborate sarcasm." He next goes on to consider various 
particular circumstances of a personal and historical character, which go much further 
than the general indications of internal evidence to make out the proposition contended 
for. I. He finds that the dates of the Junian Letters exactly tally with Francis's re- 
sidence in this country and his going abroad. 2. Francis was a clerk in the War-office, 
and Jzinius exhibits an intimate acquaintance with the business and persons of that de- 
partment. 3. Francis was appointed a clerk in the Foreign-office in 1756. Junitis shows 
an uncommon acquaintance with and interest in the transactions of the Foreign Depart- 
ment as well as the War-office ; and the period to which his knowledge refers, precedes 
the death of Lord Egremont in 1763. 4. The manner in which Junius always treats 

/■ ^ Anderson's British Poets. ' Life of Glover,' p. 469. 

^ Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 95. . , ^ „ „ t ■, r ■ ■>• 

3 This article was published in Nov. 1817. Francis died Dec. 22, 1818. It was therefore mhis 

power to publish a contradiction. 



PREFACE. ix 

Lord Chatham coincides exactly with the expressions of Sir Philip in his speeches and 
writings. 5. The high admiration of Lord Chatham which Junius shows is not recon- 
cilable with his kindness towards his antagonist Lord Holland. But the history of Sir 
Philip explains this. His father was Lord Holland's domestic chaplain. Sir Philip 
himself received from Lord Holland his first place in the Foreign-office ; and sentiments 
of gratitude would overcome the natural inducement which Junius had to join in the 
attacks upon Lord Holland. 6. From his private correspondence it is plain that 
Junius bore a great personal good- will towards Woodfall. Woodfall was educated at 
St Paul's School, where Francis is known to have been bred ; and Woodfall's son 
would afterwards speak of the acquaintance formed at that school between his father 
and Francis as having given rise to a mutual kindness during their after lives. 7. There 
is reason to believe that Junius was known to Garrick ; Sir Francis^ in the Preface to 
'England,' says that he enjoyed the friendship and esteem of Garrick. 8. It is un- 
questionable that Junius used to attend the debates in Parliament, and take notes of 
the more important speeches ; Francis attended the debates during the same period. 
9. There are many favourite expressions in their printed works which are common to 
each; such as 'Of his side' — 'So far forth' — ' Pray newQX mind' — ' Pray tell me' — 
Sec. 10. Lord Brougham then tells the following story : Mr Jackson of Ipswich was in 
Woodfall's employment at the period of the Letters ; and he states that he once saw a 
tall gentleman, dressed in a light coat, with bag and sword, throw into the office door 
opening in Fry Lane, a letter of Juniics's, which he picked up and immediately fol- 
lowed the bearer of it into St Paul's Churchyard, where he got into a hackney-coach 
and drove off". Taylor, in his ' Identity of Junius,' states that the figure and appearance 
of Sir Philip Francis answer to this description as far as it goes. 11. There are various 
peculiarities of speUing which occur uniformly in both writers. Lastly, though the 
letters are known to be written in a feigned hand, the general character agrees well 
with that of Francis. ^ 

Such is Lord Brougham's reasoning, taken in the order in which his arguments are 
stated. We will now add some further testimonies in support of his opinion. ' My 
own impression,' says Rogers, the poet, 'is that the Letters of Junius were written by 
Sir Philip Francis. In a speech which I once heard him deliver at the Mansion House 
concerning the partition of Poland, I had a striking proof that Francis possessed no 
ordinary powers of eloquence.' ^ Mr Herman Merivale is equally satisfied : ' I regard,' 
he says, ' the authorship of Junius by Francis, as proved to reasonable satisfaction by 
the arguments which long ago seemed conclusive to most of. our literary men of emin- 
ence who have carefully examined the subject.' 3 Lord Macaulay's opinion is well 
known ; he declares that the evidence in favour of Francis ' is such as would support a 
verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding.' Sir James Mackintosh was so per- 
fectly satisfied that Francis was the man that he begins an entry in his journal (1817) 
thus : ' Dec. 8. Dined with Junius. His wife is a woman of informed mind and 

^ In 1871 was published 'The Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated,' by Mr 
Charles Chabot, edited by the Hon. E. Twistleton. A writer in the ' Quarterly Review' deckres 
that thi-3 book has settled once for all the long-disputed controversy. Further than this, it is not 
necessary to refer to this publication : but the reader will presently remark the entirely different 
views expressed by a writer in the same Review in 1868, upon the identity of Francis with the 
Letters. 

^ Table-Talk. 

3 Note in Forster's ' Life of Goldsmith.' 



PREFACE. 



agreeable person. The vigorous hatreds which seem to keep Francis alive are very 
amusing,' &c^ 

Let us now turn to the other side of the question. It is shown that until forty years 
had expired since the publication of the last of the Junian letters, the name of Francis 
was never mentioned in connection with them : which is represented as a fact of con- 
siderable importance, since it is to be expected that contemporaries should be acquainted 
^vith a variety of circumstances bearing upon the question of identity of which their 
posterity caniiot but be ignorant. It is urged with great emphasis by Sir Fortunatus 
Dwarris that no one who knew, or heard, or read Francis, thought him capable of pro- 
ducing J2t7ims. Tierney, who was acquainted with Francis, declared that ' he knew no 
better reason for believing the fellow to be Junius than that he was always confound- 
edly proud of something and no one could ever guess what it could be.' It is laid down 
broadly, as a matter of fact, that in the cases of all the candidates (thirty or forty in 
number) peculiarities of spelling or expression are almost invariably forthcoming : and 
that the same thing may be said of the handwriting of Junhis, which clearly supports 
Mr Smith's theory that Lord Temple wrote the Letters with his wife for an amanuensis. 
The War-office paper by which Lord Macaulay triumphantly establishes the connection 
of Junius with the War-office turned out to be a fiction or fancy of Mr Parkes. If 
Francis were Junius he systematically assailed Wood, Welbore Ellis, Lord Egremont, 
Lord Barrington, and Calcraft, to all whom he was bound by ties of gratitude and by 
the uveliest sense of favours to come. — Jtmius was an accomplished rhetorician ; but 
the warmest champion of the Franciscan theory, Mr Merivale, admits that Francis's 
style was hard and meagre, without grace, polish, variety, or flow. — It is next shown 
that the times at which the letters of Junius were received by Woodfall do 7iot tally 
with the dates of Francis's known residence in London.^ 'The late attempt,' says a 
writer in 1833,3 ' to give the honour to Sir Philip Francis has failed like the rest, and 
from a cause admitting of no answer. Sir Philip had not talents for the task. Writing 
all his life and even emulously adopting the style of Junius, he never was able to adopt 
his spirit. The habiliments were there : the man to wear them was wanting. The 
epigram.matic turn, the terseness, the virulence, the abruptness, all the errors were there, 
and all exaggerated : but the redeeming qualities of the great writer— the vividness, the 
fine originality— the concealed metaphor shining through and giving beauty to the 
simplest phrase— the intense poignancy striking like a dagger to the heart, were not 
there, and Junius has gone to his immortality unencumbered by the clay of Sir Philip 
Francis.' Sir N. H. Nicholas, after years of exploration, arrived at the same conclusion. 

One thing, however, we cannot fail to observe in the arguments that are put forth 
respecting the Franciscan theory : we mean the tendency on the one hand to unduly 
exalt, on the other hand to unduly depreciate, the merits of the man whose identity is 
supported or denied. 

It is not perhaps unreasonable that the advocates of Francis should extol him as a 
great genius since it is their business to prove him the author of a very wonderful book. 
But itlioes not necessarily follow that he should be a mediocrist, an insignificant fel- 
low, as he has been termed, because his opponents are persuaded that he did not write 
the letters. Some who have gone so far as to admit the most distinctive and telling 

' Two stanch Franciscans are Lord Campbell and Earl Stanhope. ^ 
= Quarterly Review, vol. cxxiv., art. ' Lord Macaulay and his School. 
3 Blackwood's Magazine. 



PREFACE. xi 



points in the reasoning of Lord Brougham and Mr Taylor, still refuse to believe Francis 
capable of the letters, and suggest that he was probably the amanuensis of Junius. 
^Vithout committing ourselves to any opinion, we still cannot help thinking that it is 
not necessary to represent Francis as an incompetent man in order to demolish the 
theories of the Franciscans. Some allowance no doubt is to be made for the very 
active prejudices with which the stories that were related of Francis's temper and man- 
ners caused his name to be pursued by those who refused to recognize him as Junius. 
Even Macaulay, a zealous advocate of Sir Philip, owned that the man was arrogant 
and insolent and malevolent : and during his lifetime many anecdotes were current of 
the ferocity or suUenness of his behaviour. Wraxall declares he never saw him sinile, 
and that he was bursting with bile. But this assertion scarcely qualifies an outburst of 
profound admiration for the man's genius. ' Nature," he sa3's, ' had conferred on him 
talents such as are rarely dispensed to any individual — a vast range of ideas, a retentive 
memory, a classic mind, considerable command of language, energy of thought and ex- 
pression.' Judging him by his career, by his speeches, and even by his writings, it seems 
to us that Sir PhiHp Francis was a man of first-rate abilities ; and whether our estimate 
of him be just or not, we cannot conceive that it should be in any wise prejudiced by the 
most narrow inspection of his pretensions to the authorship of the Letters. 

However, assuming, as most of our readers probably will, the Junian riddle to be still 
unsolved, it is impossible to think of the writer of these wonderful Letters without feel- 
ings of the deepest astonishment and admiration. In an age when the rancour of 
pcUtical animosity made jealousy and curiosity two very fervent sentiments, this sur- 
prising writer, surrounded on all sides by men open-eared to hear of him, open-eyed to 
stare at him, preserved an impenetrable masquerade. What an unutterable sense of 
loneliness must sometimes have possessed him ! There is an austerity in his triuinph 
that is almost painful to think on. He must have thought in whispers and muffled his 
very instincts. He had unbounded fame ; but he could not enjoy it, being unknown. 
What transports he knew were stirely tiger-like : it was the sudden leap and deadly blow 
that composed the sum of his literary pleasures. We may figure him wringing in the 
morning the hand that ere nightfall he had resolved should be laid against a wounded 
heart. He gUded through his brief span of being, a very shadow : wielding material 
weapons with shadowy hands ; making his very wit tragical with the spirit of the 
mystery that hedged him about. Let Mr Forster speak for us — he is never more 
eloquent than when he is dealing with Junius. ' A friend of Gray relates that he had 
an appointment to meet the poet (Goldsmith) at his lodgings in Jermyn Street, and 
found him so deeply plunged in the columns of a newspaper, which with his dinner had 
been sent him from a neighbouring tavern, that his attention was with difficulty drawn 
from it. "Take this," said he in a tone of excitement: "here is such writing 
as I never before saw in a newspaper." It was the first letter with the signature 
of Junius. But it is not what we must now associate with Junius : not the 
reckless calumnies and scandals ; not the personal spites and hatreds ; not such halting 
liberalism as his approval of the taxation of America, and his protest against the dis- 
franchisement of Old Sarum, which then so completely seized upon the reason as well 
as the tempers of men. It was the startling manifestation of power and courage ; it was 
the sense that unscrupulous ministers had now an enemy as unscrupulous ; that here 
was knowledge of even the worst chicaneries of office which not the most sneering 
official could make light of ; that no minister in either House, no courtier at St James's, 



PREFACE. 



no obsequious judge at Westminster, no supercilious secretary in any of the departments, 
could hereafter feel hijnself safe from treachery and betrayal ; and from what hitherto 
had only been a vulgar, half-articulate cry from the Brentford hustings, or at best a faint 
whisper imperfectly echoed from St Stephen's, was now made the property and enjoy- 
ment of every section of the people— of the educated by its exquisite pohsh, of the vulgar 
by its relish of malice, of the great middle-class by its animated plainness, vigorous 
shrewdness, and dogged perseverance.' 

This great man's remarkable words are : — 

' I am the sole depositary of my secret, and it shall die with me.' Is that secret 
known ? 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PRELIMINARY ESSAY i 

Mr Burke's opinion of Junius, note ... 2 
Lord North's ,, ,, ... 2 

Story of the late duke of Richmond and 

W. G. Hamilton, note 4 

Opinion of the style of Junius by a con- 
temporary hostile writer, note ... 29 
Persons to whom the letters have been 
attributed ... ... ... ... ... 33 

On tr^e pretensions of ]\Ir Charles Lloyd 33 

„ ,, John Roberts 33 

,, ,, Samuel Dj^er 33 

,, ,, the rt. hon. Edm. 

Burke ... ... ... ... •.■ 33 

Extracts from Mr Burke's speech on 
American taxation ... ... ... 34 

On the pretensions of the rt. hon. W, 

G. Hamilton 38 

Extracts from Mr Llalone's Preface to 
Parliamentary Logic, in disproof that 
Hamilton was the writer of Junius ... 38 
On the pretensions of Dr Butler, bishop of 

Hereford 39 

On the pretensions of the Rev. Philip 
Rosenhagen ... ... ... ... 40 

On the pretensions of general Charles Lee 40 
Extracts from general Lee's Letters ... 43 
On the pretensions of Mr Wilkes ... 44 
,, ,, Mr Hugh Macau- 
lay Boyd _ 44 

On the pretensions of Mr Dunning, after- 
wards lord Ashburton ... ... ... 51 

On the pretensions of Henry Flood, Esq. 

]\LP. of Ireland 51 

Extracts from a speech of Mr Flood ... 52 
On the pretensions of lord George Sackville 52 

PRIVATE LETTERS addressed to Mr 
H. S. WooDFALL by Junius ... 55 

Middlesex Petition to the king, note ... 55 
City of London ,, ?iote ... 58 

Lord Holland's letter to the lord mayor 

(Mr Beckford^ ^^^z"^ 59 

Mr Beckford's answer to the foregoing note 59 
Mr Beckford's letter to a Liverj-man, , 
being a further answer to lord Holland's 

\&tter, note ... ... 59 

Lord Holland's letter to Mr H. S. Wood- 



PAGE 

fall in vindication of himself against the 
charge in the city petition, of being ' the 
public defaulter of unaccounted mil- 
lions,' note ... ... ... ... 60 

History of the dispute between the rt. 
hon. George Onslow, now lord On.slow, 
and Mr Home, afterwards JNIr Tooke, 
fiote .....-;... ... ... ... 62 

Remonstrance of the city of Westminster, 
7iote ... ... ... 69 

Letter to lord North, signed Brutus, 7tote 73 

Conclusion of a letter from Mr Wilkes to 
Mr Home, ^lote ... ... ... ... 74 

Letter from Junius to Mr David Garrick 75 

Mr Wilkes's reply to Mr Home, and com- 
pliments to the genius of Mr Garrick, 
note ... ... 75 

Case of Meares and Shepley against An- 
sell, y^ote ... ... ... 79 

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE be- 
tween Junius and Mr W^ilkes ... 87 

Copy of the resolutions of the Supporters 
of the Bill of Rights, ^/i?/"^ ... ... 91 

Extracts from Mr Wilkes's letter to the 
Livery of London, in defence of himself 
from an attack made on him by Mr 
Townshend, 7iote ... ... ... 105 

Extract from JMessrs Wilkes and Bull's 
address to the Livery on employing the 
military under the pretence of assisting 
tbe civil power, note 106 

JUNIUS'S Dedication to theEnglishNation 112 

,, Preface ... ... 115 

Woodfa.\l'sCa.se,7iote ... 117 

LETTER 

I. Junius to the printer of the P. A. r28 

II. Sir Wm Draper's answer to the 

foregoing letter of Junius, ad- 
dressed to the printer of the P. A. 133 
Short sketch of sir William Draper's 
character, 7iote ... 135 

III. Junius to sir William Draper ... 135 
Corsica reduced by the French, 7iote 136 

IV. Sir Wm Draper to Junius ... 138 

,, Neocles, note 138 

„ the Ghost, note 139 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER PAGE 

Titus to the printer of the P. A. 

note ... 139 

V. Junius to sir Wni Draper ... 143 

VI. Sir Wm Draper to Junius ... 144 

VII. Junius' to sir Win Draper ... 145 

Sir Wm Draper to the printer, 

note ... ... 146 

viii. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 148 
Sir Wm Draper to the printer of the 

P. A., note 147 

IX. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 150 

X. „ Mr Edward Weston ... 152 

Crito to „ note 152 

XI. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 153 

Conclusion of lord Mansfield's speech 

on the reversal of Mr Wilkes's 

Outlawry, 7iote ... ... ... 154 

Proceedings of the House of Com- 
mons on expelling Mr Wilkes, 

note ... ... 156 

XII. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 158 
Short sketch of the duke's political 

life to the date of this letter, note 159 
Statement of American politics at 
this period, note ... ... ... 160 

xiii. Philo Junius to the printer of the 

P. A ... 162 

XIV. „ ,, „ 163 

XV. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 166 
XVI. ,, printer of the P. A. 169 

Statemenr of Mr Walpole's expul- 
sion from the H. of C, notes ... 170 
XVII. Philo Junius to the printer of the 

P. A 172 

G. A. to the printer of the P. A. on 

Wilkes's expulsion, note ... 172 

A speech without-doors (sir Wm 
Blackstone's) on the same, 7zote 172 
xviii. Junius to Dr Wm Blackstone ... 175 
XIX. Philo Junius to the printer of the 

P. A 178 

Publius to Junius, in defence of Dr 
B., extracted from the St James's 
Chronicle, ^lote ... ... ... 178 

XX. Junius to the printer of the P, A. 182 

Philo Junius ,, 7zote 183 

XXI. Junius ,, ,, 185 

XXII. Philo Junius ,, „ 186 

XXIII. Junius to the duke of Bedford ... 188 
On the unpopular peace of 1763, and 

anecdote of the duke, 7zotes ... 188 
On the contest for mayor, &c. for 

Bedford, 7iote ... ... ... 190 

XXIV. Sir W. Draper to Junius ... 193 

XXV. Junius to sir W. Draper ... 194 

XXVI. Sir W. Draper to Junius ' ... 196 

XX VII. Junius to the printer of the 

P. A. _ _ 198 

Sir W. D. in explanation of his 

voyage to America, note ... 198 

M. Tuilius m defence of the duke 

of Bedford, w^iz"^ 199 

xxviii. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 201 
„ xxix. Philo Junius ,, ,, ,, 202 

XXX. Ju.'rius ,, ,, ,, 204 

General Gansel's case, and brigade 



LETTER PAGE 

order in consequence of it, note 205 
XXXI. Philo Junius to the printer of the 

P. A 207 

xxxiL Junius ,, ,, ,, 209 

xxxiiL ,, to the duke of Grafton ... 209 
XXXIV. „ „ „ ... 210 

Justice to the printer of the 
P. A. in defence of the d. of 
G. on the gift of the patent 
place to col. Burgoyne, 7iote 211 
XXXV. Junius to the printer of the P. A., 

being the address to the King 213 
On Woodfall's trial for publishing 

this letter, note ... 213 

Wilkes's address to the king, im- 
ploring pardon, ^f^z"^ ... ... 220 

Wilkes's petition to the king, to 
the^ame effect, 7wte ... ... 221 

xxxvi. Junius to his Grace the dike of 

Grafton 222 

XXXVII. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 226 
Address, remonstrance, and peti- 
tion of the city of London to the 
king, note ... ... ... 227 

His Majesty's answer to the fore- 
going, note ... 227 

Joint address of Lords and Com- 
mons reprobating the city ad- 
dress, note 228 

His Majesty's answer to the same, 
fiote 228 

Another address, remonstr.ance, 
, &c. from the city, in conse- 
quence of the preceding, note 228 

His Majesty's answer to it, note 229 

The lord mayor's (Beckford) re- 
ply to his Majesty's answer, 
note ... ... ... ... 229 

Lord Barrington's letter to Mr 
Justice Ponton, fwte ... ... 231 

Mr Dunning's letter to the cham- 
berlain of London, on receiving 
the freedom of the city, note ... 232 

XXXVIII. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 233 
XXXIX. ,, ,, ,, 236 

Octennial act of the Irish parlia- 
ment, note ... 240 

Origin of the dispute with Ameri- 
ca, note ... ... 240 

Failure of the plan to reduce the 
four per cents, «^/^ ... ... 241 

Case of Matthew and Patrick Ken- 
nedy, note ... 242 

XL. Junius to lord North 243 

Intelligence extraordinary. — Re- 
signation of colonel Luttrell, 
who had been appointed adju- 
tant-general in Ireland, note 244 
XLI. To the rt. hon. lord Mansfield 244 

Lord Mansfield. Explanation of 
the story of his having drank the 
Pretender's health upon his 
knees, note ... 245 

Judge Yates. — Anecdote of him, 
note 246 

Bingley. — Further account of his 



CONTENTS. 



XLII. 



PAGE 

discharge from prison, 7iote ... 247 

Libels. — Unsuccessful attempt to 
bring in an Enacting Bill to 
enable juries to try the whole 
issue, no^e ... ... ... 248 

Mr Fox more successful at a sub- 
sequent period, «tf/^ 249 

Junius to the printer of the P. A. 252 

Dr Johnson. — Extracts from his 
' Thoughts on the late trans- 
actions respecting Falkland's 
Islands,' nore ... 

Letter to the printer of the P. A. 
on the subject of a cancel in the 
foregoing pamphlet, wtfi/^ 
XLiii. Philo Junius to the printer of the 
P. A. 

Philo Junius to the printer of the 

V.A.,7wte 

XLiv. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 

The duke of Richmond's motion 
for an address to his IMajesty, 
and lord Chatham's speech in 
support of it, ?^(7/^ 
XLV. Philo Junius to the printer of the 
P. A '. 



256 



257 



259 
259 



264 



XLVI. ,, ,, ,, 

Erasure of the decision of the 
House of Commons on the Mid-j 
dlesex election, from their Jour- 
nals, -with Mr. "Wilkes's speech 
in prefacing his motion for that 
purpose, note 

Short biographical notice of Mr 
Wilkes's political life, from the 
period of publishing the North 
Briton, No. 45, to his death, 

Jiote 

XLVii. Philo Junius to the printer of the 
P. A 

XLVIII. „ ,, „ 

XLix. Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 



267 



Election of Messrs Wilkes and 
Bull to be sherifls of London, 
and Mr Robinson's note in fa- 
vour of the ministerial candi- 
dates, 7iote 27s 

Origin of the dispute between Ju- 
nius and JNIr Home, fioie ... 275 
Li. The Rev. Mr Home to Junius 277 

Whipcord to the Rev. Mr Home, 
accusing him of plagiarism, note 278 
Lii. Junius to the Rev. Mr Home... 279 

Account of the quarrel between i\Ir 
Wilkes and Mr Home, and ex- 
tracts from various letters which 
passed between them during the 
dispute, ?zote 
Liii. The Rev. Mr Home to Junius 

Mr Home's explanation, as ex- 
tracted from one of his letters, 
of his reasons for originally sup- 
porting I\Ir Wilkes, ;';:(?2'^ ... 284 

Mr Wilkes's reply to a passage in 
the foregoing extract, «C2'£' ... 285 



279 
283 



LIV. 
LV. 

LVI, 
LVII. 



288 



290 

291 
292 

296 
207 
298 



299 



LVIII. 
LIX. 



W. B. to the Rev. Mr Home, on a 
passage in his letter, taken from 
a remark made by Mr Wilkes 
on the margin of his Clarendon, 
7iote 

Vote of thanks from the Common 
Council to lord Chatham, for his 
declaration in favour of short 
parliaments, fiote 

Lord Chatham's reply to the com- 
mittee deputed to present it ... 

Junius to the printer of the P. A. 

Philo Junius „ ,, 

The Rev. I\Ir Home to Junius 

Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 

Statement of the cause between 
the duke of Portland and sir J. 
Lowther, note ... 

Decision of the court of Exche- 
quer on it, note ... 302 

Story of the Oaks, in answer to 
JuNius's charge against the duke 
of Grafton respecting Whittle- 
bury Forest, note 303 

Junius to the Livery of London 304 
,, ,, Printerof theP. A. 305 

Queries respecting the legality of 
pressing, with the answers of 
JNIessrs Wedderbum, Glynn, and 
Dunning, note 308 

Philo Junius to the printer of the 
P. A 310 

Scsevola to Junius in defence of 
lord Camden, 7iote ... ... 310 

Extract from a subsequent letter 
of Scaevola, fiote 312 

Queries to Scsevola in consequence 



LXIV 
LXV. 



of the foregomg extract, note 
. Philo Junius to Zeno 

Zeno, addressed to Junius, alias 
Edmund the Jesuit of St 
Omer's, 7iote 

Philo Junius to an Advocate in the 
cause of the people 

The letter of an Advocate, &c. to 
which the foregoing is an an- 
swer, note ... 

A friend of Junius, in answer to 
a barrister at law 

The barrister's letter, note 

To the printer of the P. A.— De- 
claration in behalf of Junius 

Junius to lord chief justice Mans- 
field 

Statement of the case of Eyre, 
710 te 

Junius engages to make good his 
charge against lord c. j. Mans- 
field 

Junius to the duke of Grafton ... 

Disgraceful anecdote of lord Irn- 
ham 

Junius to lord c. j. Mansfield 

The case of John Taylor, tried for 
the murder of James Smith, in 
which baron Smj'the, who pre- 



312 



317 



CONTENTS. 



340 



341 



342 



345 



LETTER PAGE 

sided, was accused of partiality, 

note ... ... 336 

Mr Dunning's defence of baron 

Smythe, note ... 336 

Lxix. Junius to lord Camden 337 

LXix. Extracts from the letter of Junius 
to Mr Wilkes, dated Sept. 7, 

^1771 . 338 

Conclusion 339 

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF 
JUNIUS 

I. Poplicola on the conduct of lord Chat- 

ham ... ... ... 

Mr Pitt's (lord Chatham's) letter in ex- 
planation of his and lord Temple's 
resignation, 7wte 

II. Poplicola to the printer of the P. A. 

in defence of his last letter, and in 
answer to sir W. Draper, (by mis- 
take called C. D. instead of W. D.) 

Mr Wilkes's attack upon lord Chat- 
ham, note 

Sir W Draper's defence of him, note 

III. Anti-Sejanus, jun., to the printer of 

the P. A., on lord Chatham's forming 
part of an administration under the 
the earl of Bute 

IV. A Faithful Monitor to the printer of 

the P. A., on lord Townshend and his 
brother the hon. Charles Townshend 346 
V. Correggio to the printer of the P. A. 
— Ironical portraits of the duke *of 
Grafton, Mr Conway, lord Camden, 
lord Northington, lord Shelburne, T. 
Townshend, the marquis of Granby, 
lord Barrington, lord Chatham, sir 
G. Elliott, and governor Johnstone, 
fictitiously attributed to the pencil 

of lord Townshend ... 

VI. Moderator to the printer of the P. A. 

— The subject lord Townshend ... 
viL. Grand council on the affairs of Ireland. 
— Ironical discussion of instructions 
to be given lord Townshend, just 
then appointed lord-lieutenant of 

Ireland 

Mr Burke charged with being the 
author of the foregoing satire, note 
VIII. To the printer of the P. A. in support 
of the pretended instructions to lord 
Townshend ... 

IX. Y. Z. to the printer of the P. A. — Dis- 

cussion, in the form of a debate, of 
the king's speech on opening the 
session of parliament, in Nov. 1767 
Extract from the speech, note 

X. To the printer of the P. A. on the sub- 

ject of American politics 

XI. Downright to the printer of the P. A. 

— Attack on lord Chatham as the 
cause of the increase of the national 
debt 

XII. To the printer of the Public fAd- 

vertiser. — Commission for holding 
the privy seal, during the illness of 



347 



349 



351 



354 



355 



356 



36X 



363 



XV. 
XVI. 
XVII. 



XIX. 
XX. 



LETTER PAGE 

lord Chatham, attacked ... 363 

XIII. Mnemon to the printer of the 

P. A., on the grant of a part of 
the duke of Portland's estate to 
sir J. Lowther 365 

XIV. Mnemon to the printer of the 

P. A. — The same subject con- 
tinued ... 367 

I Lord North's defence of the grant 

in question, note 368 

Anti-van-Teague in answer to 
Mnemon _ 369 

Anti-Stuart in reply to Anti-van- 
Teague 370 

C. to the printer of the P. A.— The 
Ministry attacked for suffering 
Mr Wilkes to be at large with 
an outlawry hanging over him 371 

Q. in the Corner to the printer of 
the P. A. in support of the fore- 

^ going 373 

C. to the printer of the P. A. on 
the subject of 7iidhiin teinpjis 373 

To the duke of Grafton on his 
taking Miss Parsons to the 

opera 375 

XXI. Bifrons to the printer of the P. A. 
on the duke of Grafton's breach 
of promise to the duke of Port- 
land respecting his estate ... 376 
XXII. C. to the printer of the P. A. on 
the commission for opening par- 
liament 378 

XXIII. Valerius to theprinter of the P. A. 

in defence of ' the duke of Port- 
land's case ' 378 

XXIV. Fiat Justitia to the printer of the 

P. A. — Attack on lord Barring- 
ton's letter, thanking the guards 
for their couduct in St George's 

Fields 380 

Lord Barrington's letter and ac- 
count of the riot, «i9/^.y ... 380 

XXV. Pomona to Master Harry in 

Black-boy Alley/ on his dupli- 
city 381 

XXVI. C. to the printer of the P. A. — 
The new commission of the 
Board of Trade ridiculed ... 382 

XXVII. Insomnis to Mr Woodfall in de- 
fence of the Board 383 

xxvin. C. to the printer of the P. A. — 

Reply to Insomnis 384 

XXIX. To the printer of the P. A. on the 

subject of American politics 386 
XXX. L. L. to the printer of the P. A. 
— Sir Jeffery Amherst's dismis- 
sion from his government of 
Virginia considered 388 

XXXI. To the printer of the P. A. — 
American politics further dis- 
cussed, and Mr Grenville's cha- 
racter defended 389 

A letter from that gentleman to 
Mr Knox on the subject of 
America, note 390 



CONTENTS. 



391 



391 



402 



402 



40; 



LETTER PAGE 

XXXII. Lucius to the prkiter of the P. A. 
— Sir J. Amherst's dismission 

XXXIII. Atticus to the printer of the P. A. 

on the general state of the 
country ... ... 

XXXIV. Valerius to the printer of the 

P. A. attributing the dismission 
of sir J. Amherst to the influ- 
ence of lord Bute 393 

XXXV. Lucius to the earl of Hills- 
borough, on sir J.A.'s dismis- 
sion 396 

XXXVI. Cleophas to the printer of the 
P. A. in defence of the earl of 

Hillsborough ... 398 

XXXVII. Lucius to the earl of H. in reply 

to Cleophas 399 

Lord H.'s letter to sir J. A. and 
A. B.'s 3.ns\ver, Jiofes ... 399,400 
XXXVIII. L. L. to the printer of the P. A. 
in support of sir J. A. 
XXXIX. Lucius to the earl of Hills- 
borough. — The same subject 

continued ... _ 

XL. Cleophas to the printer of the 
P. A. in answer to Lucius ... 
XLI. Lucius to the earl of H. — At- 
tack upon his Lordship con- 
tinued ... 404 

XLIL The same to the same 406 

Conclusion of Scrutator's letter in 

answer to the foregoing, noie 407 
Corrector in reply to some an- 
swers given to Lucius's pre- 
ceding letter, y^i^^"^ ... ... 408 

XLiii. Lucius to the earl of H. on the 
subject of sir J. A. 

XLiv. The same to the same 

XLV. Atticus to the printer of the 

P. A. on the state of the nation 
XLVI. Temporum Felicitas to the print- 
er of the P. A. — Ironical de- 
fence of lord Hillsborough in 
the affair of sir J. A. ... 
XLVii. Brutus to the printer of the P. A. 
in reply to an attack on the 
letter of Atticus 
XLViiL Atticus to the printer of the P. A. 
giving a description of the 
members who formed the ad- 
ministration, together with the 
then state of the country 
XLix. "Why? to the printer of the P. A. 
on the appointment of lord 
Rochford to be secretary for 
the Northern department ... 
L. Brutus to the printer of the P. A. 
in support of the letters of At- 
ticus 

LI. Atticus to the printer of the P. A. 
—The subject of his last con- 
tinued ... ... ... ... 420 

Lii. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 
— Observations on the conduct 
of the duke of Grafton and lord 
Camden towards J\Ir Wilkes 422 



408 ! 
4 



413 



414 



414 



418 



419 



LETTER PAGE 

Liii. To the rt. hon; G. Grenville on 

American affairs 423 

Character of JNIr Grenville, an 
anecdote respecting Florida and 
Louisiana, by IMr Knox, form- 
erly his private secretary, note 424 
Liv. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 
in consequence of the monody 
on his supposed death by Poet- 
ikastos ... ... ... ... 425 

The monod}'-, and Silurus's de- 
scription of Junius, note ... 425 
LV. Your real Friend, to the marquis 
of Granby, to induce his vote 
against administration, on the 
question of seating col. Lutt- 

rell for AJiddlesex 426 

LVi. Simplex to the printer of the 
P. A. — An attack on the duke 
of Grafton and sir William 
Blackstone, for the pardon of 

INI'Quirk 427 

LVii. Amicus Curiae to the printer of 
the P. A. in defence of the Let- 
ters of Junius 428 

LVIII. Junia to the printer of the P. A. 
— A pretended female challenge 
to Junius, and in support of 
the decision of the House of .- 
Commons on the Middlesex 
election ... ... ... ... 430 

Lix. Junius to the printer of the P. A. 

assuming Junia to be his wife 431 
Junius disavows, though not di- 
rectl}-, the last letter, jiote ... 432 
LX. Augur to the printer of the P. A. 
reprobating the abusive lan- 
guage of the ministerial writers 432 
LXI. A. B. to the duke of Grafton, 
printed by the desire of, though 
not written by, Junius, on cer- 
tain justices of the peace being 
made for the county of Leices- 
ter at the request of lord Den- 
bigh 

LXii. INIessala to the printer of the P. A. 
in reply to the foregoing 
LXiir. X. X. to the printer of the P. A. 
• with a letter from Mr Onslow 

to INIr Wilkes 435 

Another letter of Mr Onslow 
to Islr Wilkes, note ... ... 435 

LXiv. X._X. to the printer of the P. A. 
in answer to Modestus on the 
subject of general Gansel's 

rescue 436 

Lxv. Y. Y. to the printer of the P. A. 
being a reply to the preceding 

letter 437 

Lxvi. X. X. to the printer of the P.A. 

in rejoinder 438 

Lxvii. Modestus to Junius, in support 
of the officers concerned in gen- 
eral Gansel's rescue ... ... 439 

, Lxviil. X. X. to the printer of the P. A. 

on the subject of the foregoing 441 



433 



434 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER PAGE 

LXix. Domitian to the printer of the 
P. A— Sketches of the cha- 
racters of several members of 

administration 441 

LXX. Moderatus to the printer of the 
P. A. on the dispute which oc- 
curred with the sheriffs of 
London previous to presenting 
the city address, &c. ... 443 

Further particulars of this dispute, 
with lord Weymouth's letters, 

note _ ... 443 

Lxxi. Q in the Corner to the printer of 
the P. A., wherein Miss Brad- 
shaw is charged with having 
sold the place of surveyor of 
the pines in America ... ... 445 

Lxxii. A Labourer in the same Cause, to 
■ the printer of the P. A., in dis- 
sent to a recommendation that 
Mr Wilkes should stand for- 
ward as a candidate for the city 
of London on the death of Al- 
derman Beckford 446 

Mr Alderman Townshend's trial 
of the validity of the Land-tax 
Act, on the pretence that the 
intrusion of Mr Luttrell had 
vitiated the parliament, note 446 

Lxxiii. Mr Grey Cooper to the printer of 
the P. A., in answer to Q in 
the Corner ... 448 

Lxxiv. Q in the Corner to the printer of 

the P. A. in reply ... ... 448 

Lxxv. Q in the Corner to Thomas Brad- 
shaw, Esq., on the subject of his 
former letters ... 

Lxxvi. A Labourer in the same Cause to 
the printer of the P. A., in sup- 
port of his previous opinion ... 

LXXVII. Testis to the printer of the P. A., 
being remarks on a declaration 
of lord Barrington, reflecting 
upon all the general officers of 

the army ... 450 

LXXVI II. Testiculus to the printer of the 
P. A. — An ironical defence of 
his Lordship 451 

Lxxix. Domitian to the printer 'of the 
P. A. — A review of the political 
conduct of the duke of Grafton, 
and imitation of his oratorial 

powers ... ... 452 

Lxxx. Chapter of facts or materials for 

history ... 454 

Lxxxi. Second chapter of facts, &c. ... 455 
Lxxxii. Phalaris to the printer of the 
P. A., on lord Mansfield laying 
a copy of his charge in Wood- 
fall's case on the table of the 

Hou.se of Lords 456 

Nerva's defence of his Lordship, 

note ... 456 

-xxxiii. Domitian to the printer of the 
P. A. on the re-appointment of 
k)rd Sandwich to be minister 



448 



449 



LETTER PAGE 

for foreign affairs 459 

I.XXXIV. Phalaris' card to sir ... 460 

LXXXV. Intelligence Extraordinary. — On 
lord Sandwich's removal to the 
Admiralty, and Whatelj^'s con- 
duct after the death of G. 
Grenville ... ... ... 460 

Lxxxvi. Anti-W. to the printer of the 

P. A., in defence of Junius 461 
LXXXVii. Domitian to the printer of the 
P. A. — Review of the conduct 
of the Princess Dowager of 
Wales, and observations on the 
different members who com- 
posed the ministry'- ... ... 462 

Lxxxviii. A member of one House, &c. to 
,the printer of the P. A. on the 
convention with Spain respect- 
ing Falkland's Islands ... 465 

Further account of this occur- 
rence, w^/^ ... 465 

Maserano's declaration, and the 
earl of Rochford's acceptance, 
note ... 465 

Lord Chatham's queries respect- 
ing the declaration, and lord 
Mansfield's answer, note . . . 466 

Address of thanks carried in both 
Houses of parliament, wc/i? ... 466 

Protest against the address of the 
House of Lords, signed by nine- 
teen peers, 7^(?/i? 467 

Lxxxix. A. B. to the printer of the P. A. 
upon lord Gower's election to be 
a Knight of the Garter ... 469 

xc. Vindex to the printer of the P. A. 

upon the Spanish declaration 470 
xci. Vindex to the printer of the P. A. 

upon the same ... ... ... 471 

XCii. An Engli.shman, &c. to the printer 
of the P. A. on the subject of 
the power of the House of 
Commons to imprison during 
pleasure ... ... 471 

Detail of the origin of this dis- 
pute by the resistance of Whe- 
ble and Miller 471 

The lord mayor's speech in the 
House of Commons, and his 
committal to the Tower ... 472 
xciii. G. W.'s address to the lord 
mayor, &c., on the proclama- 
tion for taking the printers into 
custody 473 

Mr Morris's speech to the Bill 
of Rights Society on this sub- 
ject, note ... ... 475, 476 

xciv. G. W.'s second address to the 
lord mayor, &c., on the pri- 
vilege of parliament ... ... 476 

Lord chief justice Holt's opinion 
upon the subjects of the fore- 
going letters, ;z(?2'(? ... ... 479 

cv. A Whig to the printer of the P. A. 

upon the same subjects ... 479 

Minutes of the House of Com- 



CONTENTS. 



mons in respect to their mes- 
senger 

The messenger indicted in de- 
fiance of the resolution of the 
House, and a true bill found 
against him 

A noli prosequi entered, and the 
speech of Sir Adair against it 

Mr attorney-general's speech in 
answer 

Mr Adair's reply to the attorney- 
general, and noli prosequi 

granted ... 

xcvi. Henricus to the earl of Suffolk 
on his joining administration 
xcvii. Henricus to the earl of Suffolk, 

on the same 
xcviii. Domitian's answer to a card call- 
ing upon him to bring fonvard 
the affair of Hine's patent ... 
xcix. An Innocent Reader to the printer 
of the P. A., being an account 
of the emperor Valentinian ... 
C. Anti-Fox to the printer of the 
P. A —An attack on the late 

Mr Fox 

CI. A. B. to the printer of the P, A. 
in support of Junius on the 
bailment of Eyre 

One of the Bail and Anti- Junius 
in defence of lord Mansfield, 

^loies ... 

cii. Cumbriensis to the duke of Cum- 
berland. — Ironical congratula- 
tion on his marriage with col. 
Luttrell's sister, Mrs Horton 



LETTER _ PAGE 

cm. Anti-Belial to the printer of the 
P. A. requesting that lord Mans- 
field might be left to the care 
of Junius 495 

CIV. Juniper to the printer of the P.A. 

in support of Junius ... ... 495 

CV. Veteran to lord Barrington on 
Mr Chamier being made deputy 
secretary at war ... ... 496 

cvi. Anti-Belial to the printer of the 
P. A. in defence ,of the doc- 
trine maintained by Junius, in 
Letter lxviii. to lord Mans- 
field 497 

cvii. Veteran to lord Barrington on his 

political tergiversation . . . 498 
cviii. Veteran to lord Barrington on his 
insult to the army and to gen- 
eral Harvey ... 500 

cix. Veteran to lord Barrington. — 
General observations on his 

political conduct 501 

ex. Veteran to the printer of the 
P. A. on the removal of Messrs 
D'Oyly and Francis from the 
War Office ... ... ... 503 

CXI. Scotus to lord Barrington. — Iron- 
ical defence of the Scotch ... 503 
cxii. Arthur Tell-truth to the lords of 
the Admiralty on the appoint- 
ment of Mr Bradshaw to be a 
member of that board ... 504 
cxill. Nemesis to the printer of the 
P. A., which the author en- 
titled, Memoirs of lord Bar 
rington 505 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



It was not from personal vanity, but a 
fair estimate of his own merit, and the im- 
portance of the subject on which he wrote, 
that the author of the ensuing letters pre- 
dicted their immortality. Their matter and 
their manner, the times they describe, and 
the talents they disclose, the popularity 
which attended them at their outset, the im- 
pression they produced on the public mind, 
and the triumph of most of the doctrines 
they inculcate, all equally concur in stamp- 
ing for them a passport to the most distant 
posterity. 

In their range these letters comprise a 
period of about five years ; from the middle 
of 1767 to the middle of 1772 : and never 
has the history of this country, from its 
origin to the present hour, exhibited a period 
of equal extent that more peremptorily de- 
manded the severe, decisive, and overpower- 
ing pen of such a writer as Junius. The 
storms and tempests that, within the last 
twenty years, have shaken the political world 
to its centre, have been wider and more tre- 
mendous in their operation ; but they have, 
for the most part, discharged their fury at a 
distance. The constitutions of other coun- 
tries have been swept away by the wliirl- 
wind ; but that of England still towers, hke 
the pyramids of Egypt, a wonderful and im- 
mortal fabric, overshadowing the desert that 
surrounds it, and defying the violence of its 
hurricanes. In the period before us, however, 
this stupendous and beautiful fabric itself 
was attacked, and trembled to its founda- ■' 
tion : a series of unsuccessful ministries, too 



often profligate and corrupt, and not unfre- 
quently cunning, rather than capable ; a 
succession of weak and obsequious parlia- 
ments, and an arbitrary, though able chief 
justice, addicted to the impolitic measures 
of the cabinet, fatally concurred to con- 
found the relative powers of the state, and 
equally to unhinge the happiness of the 
crown and of the people ; to frustrate all the 
proud and boasted triumphs of a glorious 
war, concluded but a few years before by an 
inglorious peace ; ^ to excite universal con- 
tempt abroad, and universal discord at 
home. Hence France, humiliated as she 
was by her losses and defeat, did not hesi- 
tate to invade Corsica in open defiance of 
the remonstrances of the British minister, 
and succeeded in obtaining possession of it; 
whilst Spain dishonourably refused to make 
good the ransom she had agreed to, for the 
restoration of the capital of the Philippine 
Isles, which had been exempted from pillage 
upon this express stipulation. They saw 
the weakness and distraction of the English 
cabinet, and had no reason to dread the 
chastisement of a new war. 

The discontents in the American colonies, 
which a little address might at first have 
stifled for ever, were blown into a flame of 
open rebellion, thi-ough the impolitic vio- 
lence of the very minister who was ap- 
pointed, by the creation of a new office at 
this very time and for this express purpose. 



^ In 1763, through the negotiation of the duke 
of Bedford. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



to examine into the causes of dissatisfaction, 
and to redress the grievances complained 
of : while, at home, the whole of the ways 
and means of the ministry, instead of being- 
directed against the insolence of the com- 
mon enemy, were exhausted against an in- 
dividual, who, perhaps, would never have 
been so greatly distinguished, had not the 
ill-judged and contumacious opposition of 
the cabinet, and their flagrant violation of 
the most sacred and important principles of 
the constitution in order to punish him, 
raised him to a height of popularity seldom 
attained even by the most successful can- 
didates for public applause ; and embroiled 
themselves on his account in a dispute with 
the nation at large, almost amounting to a 
civil war, and which, at length, only termin- 
ated in their own utter confusion and de- 
feat.' 



^ In the language of lord Chatham, delivered 
May I, 1771, in the House of Lords, " they ren- 
dered the very name of parliament ridiculous, 
by carrying on a constant war against Mr 
Wilkes." 

^ They were generally copied from the Public 
Advertiser into all the daily and evening papers. 

3 That the same general impression was pro- 
duced by the appearance of these letters in 
parliament, which is so well known to have 
been produced otit of it, is evident from almost 
all the speeches of the day, if the editor had time 
to refer to them. But the following extracts from 
two speeches, one of Mr Burke and one of lord 
North will, he presumes, be sufficient for the 
purpose. 

The ensuing is part of a speech delivered by 
Mr Burke. 

" Where then shall we look for the origin of 
this relaxation of the laws and all government ? 
How oomes this Junius to have broke through 
the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncon- 
trouled, unpunished, through the land? The 
myrmidons of the court have been long, and are 
still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend 
their time upon me, or you, or you. No : they 
disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of 
the forest, that has broke through all their toils, 
is before them. But what will all their efforts 
avail? No sooner has he wounded one than he 
lays down another dead at his feet. For my 
part, when I saw his attack upon the King, T 
own my blood ran cold. I thought he had ven- 
tured too far, and there was an end of his 
triumphs, not that he had not asserted many 
truths. Yes, Sir, there are in that composition 
many bold truths, by which a wise prince might 
profit. It was the rancour and venom with which 
I was struck. In these respects the North 



It was at this period, and under these 
circumstances, that the ensuing letters suc- 
cessively made their appearance in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, the most current newspaper 
of the day.- The classical chastity of their 
language, the exquisite force and perspicuity 
of their argument, the keen severity of their 
reproach, the extensive information they 
evince, their fearless and decisive tone, and, 
above all, their stern and steady attachment 
to the purest principles of the constitution, 
acquired for them, with an almost electric 
speed, a popularity which no series of letters 
have since possessed, nor, perhaps, ever 
will ; and what is of far greater consequence, 
diffused among the body of the people a 
clearer knowledge of their constitutional 
rights than they had ever before attained, 
and animated them with a more determined 
spirit to maintain them inviolate. 3 Enveloped 

Briton is as much inferior to him, as in strength, 
wit, and judgment. But while I expected in 
this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold 
him rising still higher, and coming down souse 
upon both Houses of Parliament. Yes, he did 
make you his quarry, and you still bleed from 
the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and 
still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he 
dreaded the terrors of your brow. Sir ; he has 
attacked even you — he has — and I believe you 
have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In 
short, after carrying away our Royal Eagle in 
his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he 
has laid you prostrate. King, Lords, and Com- 
mons are but the sport of his fury. Were he a 
member of this House, what might not be ex- 
pected from his knowledge, his firmness, and 
integrity? He would be easily known by his 
contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by 
his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance 
and activity. Bad ministers could conceal no- 
thing from his sagacity ; nor could promises nor 
threats induce him to conceal any thing from the 
public." 

The following is part of a speech delivered by 
lord North. 

" When factious and discontented men have 
brought things to this pass, why should we be 
surprised at the difficulty of bringing libellers to 
justice? Why should we v/onder that the great 
boar of the wood, this mighty Junius, has broke 
through the toils and foiled the hunters ? Though 
there may be at present no spear that will reach 
him, yet he may be some time or other caught. 
At any rate he will be exhausted with fruitless 
efforts ; those tusks which he has been whetting 
to wound and gnaw the constitution will be worn 
out. Truth will at last prevail. The public will 
see and feel that he has either advanced false. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



in the cloud of a fictitious name, the writer 
of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld 
with secret satisfaction the vast influence of 
his labours, and enjoyed, though, as we shall 
afterwards observe, not always without 
apprehension, the universal hunt that was 
made to detect him in his disguise. He 
beheld the people extolling him, the court 
execrating him, and ministers and more 
than ministers trembling beneath the lash 
of his invisible hand. 

It is by no means, however, the intention 
of the editor of the present volume to vin- 
dicate the whole of the method pursued by 
Junius towards the accomplishment of the 
patriotic objects on which his heart appears 
to have been most ardently engaged. Much 
of his individual sarcasm might perhaps 
have been spared with advantage — and 
especially the whole of his personal assaults 
upon the character and motives of the king. 
Aware as the editor is of the arguments in 
favour of occasionally attacking the cha- 
racter of the chief magistrate, as urged by 
Junius himself in his Prefa.ce,pos^, p. 125, 
and in p. 296, he still thinks that no 
possible circumstances could justify so 
gross a disrespect and indecency ; that 
no principle of the constitution supports 
it, and that every advantage it was calcu- 
lated to produce, might have been obtained 
in an equal degree, and to an equal extent, 
by animadverting upon the conduct of the 
king's ministers, instead of censuring that 
of the king in person. In the volume be- 
fore us the editor is ready to acknowledge 
that these kinds of paragraphs seem at times 
not altogether free from — what ought never 
to enter the pages of a writer on national 

facts, or reasoned falsely from true principles ; 
and that he has owed his escape to the spirit of 
the times, not to the justice of his cause. The 
North Briton, the most flagitious hbel of its day, 
would have been equally secure, had it been as 
powerfully supported. But the press had not then 
overflowed the land with its black gall, and 
poisoned the minds of the people. Political 
writers had some shame left; they had some 
reverence for the crown, some respect for the 
name of Majesty. Nor were there any members 
of parliament hardy enough to harangue in de- 
fence of libels. Lawyers could hardly be brought 
to plead for them. But the scene is now entirely 



subjects— individual spleen and enmity. 
But well may we forgive such trivial aberra- 
tions of the heart, in the midst of the 
momentous matter this volume is well 
known to contain, the important principles 
it inculcates ; and especially under the 
recollection that but for the letters of 
Junius, the Commons of England might 
still have been without a knowledge of the 
transactions of dre House of Commons, 
consisting of their parliamentary represent- 
atives — have been exposed to the absurd 
and obnoxious harassment of parliamentary 
arrests, upon a violation of privileges unde- 
fined and incapable of being appealed 
against — defrauded of their estates upon an 
arbitrary and interested claim of the crown 
— and deprived of the constitutional right 
of a jury to consider the question of law as 
well as of fact. To the steady patriotism 
of the late Mr Fox is the nation solely in- 
debted for a direct legislative decision upon 
this last important point ; — but the ground 
was previously cleared by the letters before 
us ; it is not often that a judge has dared 
openly to controvert this right since the 
manly and unanswerable argument of 
Junius upon this subject, in opposition to 
the arbitrary and illegal doctrine of lord 
Mansfield, as urged in the case of the King 
against Woodfall : ^ — an argument which 
seems to have silenced every objection, to 
have convinced every party, and without 
which perhaps even the zeal and talents of 
Mr Fox himself might have been exercised 
in vain. 

But, after all, who or what was Junius ? 
this shadow of a name, who thus shot his 
unerring arrows from an impenetrable con- 
cealment, and punished without being per- 

changed. Without-doors, within-doors, the same 
abusjve strains prevail. Libels find patrons in 
both Houses of Parliament as well as in West- 
minster Hall. Nay, they pronounce libels on 
the very judges. They pervert the privilege of 
this House to the purposes of faction. They 
catch and swallow the breath of the inconstant 
multitude, because, I suppose, they take their 
voice, which is now thatof libels, to be the voice 
of God." 

^ See this case more particularly detailed in 
note to Preface, /^.y;?, p. 117, and in note to 
p. 213. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



ceived ? The question is natural ; and it 
has been repeated almost without intermis- 
sion, from the appearance of his first letter. 
It is not unnatural, moreover, from the per- 
tinacity with which he has at all times 
eluded discovery, that the vanity of many 
political writers of inferior talents should 
have induced them to lay an indirect claim 
to his Letters, and especially after the 
danger of responsibility had considerably 
ceased. Yet while the editor of the pre- 
sent impression does not undertake, and, 
in fact, has it not in his power, to communi- 
cate the real name of Junius, he pledges 
himself to prove, from incontrovertible 
evidence, afforded by the private letters of 
Junius himself during the period in ques- 
tion, in connection with other documents, 
that not one of these pretenders has ever 
had the smallest right to the distinction 
which some of them have ardently coveted. 
These private and confidential letters, 
addressed to the late Mr Woodfall, are now 
for the first time made public by his son, 
who is in possession of the author's auto- 
graphs ; ^ and from the various facts and 
anecdotes they disclose, not only in relation 
to this extraordinary character, but to other 

^ There must have been some misunderstand- 
ing either of the extent of the question or the 
nature of the answer in that part of a conversa- 
tion which Mr Campbell, in his Life of Hugh 
Boyd, states to have occurred between Mr H. S. 
Woodfall (editor and one of the proprietors of 
the Public Advertiser), and himself, m relation 
to the preservation of these autographs.' "I 
proceeded," says Mr Campbell, '"to ask him 
if he had preserved any of the manuscripts of 
Junius? He said he had not.''' p. 164. The 
veracity of Mr H. S. Woodfall is well known to 
have been unimpeachable ; and it is by no means 
the intention of the editor to suspect that of Mr 
Campbell. It is probable that Mr Woodfall 
understood the question to be whether he had 
regularly preserved the manuscripts of Junius, 
or had preserved any of the manuscripts of 
Junius which had publicly appeared taider 
that sig7tature? No man, not even Mr Camp- 
bell himself, could have suspected Mr Woodfall 
to have been guilty of a wilful falsehood : nor 
can any advantage be assigned, or even con- 
ceived, that could possibly have resulted from 
such a falsehood, had it taken place. 

It is equally extraordinary that Mr Campbell, 
in this same conversation, should represent Mr 
Woodfall as saying that " as to the story about ^ 
Hamilton quoting Junius to the late duke of] 



characters as well, they cannot fail of being 
highly interesting to the political world. 
To have published these letters at an 
earher period would have been a gross 
breach of trust and decorum : the term of 
trust, however, seems at length to have ex- 
pired ; most of the parties have paid the 
debt of nature, and should any be yet living, 
the length of time which has since elapsed 
has so completely blunted the asperity of 
the strictures they contain, that they could 
scarcely object to so remote a publication of 
them. Junius, in the career of his activity, 
was the man of the people ; and when the 
former can receive no injury from the dis- 
closure, the latter have certainly a claim to 
every information that can be communi- 
cated concerning him. 

It was on the 28th of April, in the year 
1767, that the late Mr H. S. Woodfall re- 
ceived, amidst other letters from a great 
number of correspondents for the use of 
the Public Advertiser, of which he was a 
proprietor, the first public address of this 
celebrated writer. He had not then as- 
sumed the name, or rather written under 
the signature, of Junius ; nor did he always 
indeed assume a signature of any kind. 



Richmond, he knew it to be a misconception." 
In regard to the story itself, Woodfall knew it 
to be founded in fact from Hamilton's own re- 
lation — and has repeatedly mentioned it as such ; 
but he may have meant that the story as told by 
Mr Campbell was a misconception. 

In effect the late duke of Richmond himself 
distinctly informed the son of the late Mr Wood- 
fall, that such a communication with Hamilton 
had taken place, while his Grace was riding with 
sir James Peachey, afterwards lord Sclsey, in 
the park at Goodwood, though he could not at 
that distance of time recollect the particular 
letter to which it referred. The clue to the 
mystery is that Mr Hamilton was acquainted 
with the late Mr H. S. Woodfall, and used 
occasionally to call at his office ; whence it is 
highly probable that Mr Woodfall had shown 
him or detailed to him a letter from Junius 
then just received, and intended for publication 
on a certain day. Hamilton alluded to the 
general purport of this letter, on the day on 
which it was to have been published, as though 
he had just read it ; when to the astonishment 
of his Grace and sir James Peachey, to whom 
he thus mentioned it, no such letter appeared, 
though it did appear the next day or the day 
after. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



When he did so, however, his signatures 
were diversified, and the chief of them were 
ISInemon, Atticus, Lucius, Junius, and 
Brutus. Under the first he sarcastically- 
opposed the ministry upon the subject of 
the Nullum Tempus bill, which involved 
the celebrated dispute concerning the 
transfer on the part of the crown of the 
duke of Portland's estate of the forest of 
Inglewood, and the manor and castle of 
Carhsle, to sir James Lowther, son-in-law 
of lord Bute, upon the plea that these lands, 
which formerly belonged to the crown, had 
not been duly specified in king WiUiam's 
grant of them to the Portland family ; and 
that hence, although they had been in the 
Portland family for nearly seventy years, 
they of right belonged to the crown still. 
The letters signed Atticus and Brutus relate 
chiefly to the growing disputes with the 
American colonies : and those subscribed 
Lucius, exclusively to the outrageous dis- 
mission of sir JefferyAmherst from his post 
of governor of Virginia. 

The name of Mnemon was, perhaps, 
taken up at hazard. That of Atticus was 
unquestionably assumed from the author's 
own opinion of the purity of his style, an 
opinion in which the public universally con- 
curred ; and the three remaining signatures 
of Lucius, Junius, and Brutus were ob- 
viously deduced from a veneration for the 
memory of the celebrated Roman patriot, 
who united these three names in his own. 



^ That those under the signature of Lucius 
were early and generally traced to the pen of 
Junius even by writers of the opposite party, 
may be fairlj' inferred from the following passage 
in a letter in the Public Advertiser of the date 
of April 27th, 1769, signed 'A long forgotten 
correspondent,' intended as an antidote to the 
poison that Junius was supposed to be propagat- 
ing. 

' In the warm and energetic, though keen and 
sarcastic style of Junius, we may, I think, 
easily descry the Lucius, long dreaded by his 
opponents ; and from the warmth of his senti- 
ments, if they do indeed correspond with his ex- 
pressions, we may expect a future Brutus, a 
patriotic character much to be dreaded by all 
those who, content with the portion of power 
now in the hands of government (if government 
had the spirit to exert it:, wish not to see the 
people, by their factious and unmeaning rage, 



Various other names were also occasion- 
ally assumed by this fertile political writer, 
to answer particular purposes, or more com- 
pletely to conceal himself, and carry forward 
his extensive design. That of Philo-Junius, 
he has avowed to the public, in the author- 
ized edition of the Letters of Junius : but 
besides this, he is yet to be recognized 
under the mask of Poplicola, Domitian, 
Vindex, and several others, as the sub- 
joined pages will sufficiently testify. 

The most popular of our author's letters 
anterior to those published with the signa- 
ture of Junius in 1769, were those sub- 
scribed Atticus and Lucius ; to the former 
of which the few letters signed Brutus seem 
to have been little more than auxiliary, and 
are conseqtiently not polished with an equal 
degree of attention. These letters, in pomt 
of time, preceded those with the signature 
of Junius by a few weeks : they are cer- 
tainly written with admirable spirit and 
perspicuity, and are entitled to all the popu- 
larity they acquired : — yet they are not per- 
haps possest of more merit than our author's 
letters signed Mnemon. They nevertheless 
deserve a more minute attention from their 
superior celebrity. The proofs of their 
having been composed by the writer de- 
nominated Junius are incontestable : the 
manner, the phraseology, the sarcastic, ex- 
probratory style, independendy of any other 
evidence, sufficiently identify them.^ These 



provoke their long-suffering Sovereign to throw 
real chains over them, and correct their madness 
with stripes and hunger, the proper cure for 
phrenzy, the only specific for such headstrong 
and vicious insanity.' 

The celebrity acquired by these earlier letters 
of Junius, under the signature of Lucius, in- 
duced several other writers of the same period 
to adopt the same signature ; and hence Lucius, 
and Lucius Verus, are common signatures in the 
Public Advertiser during the years 1769, 1770. 
But there is no more reason to suppose that 
Junius himself ever had recourse to this signa- 
ture than he had to that of Atticus, or Brutus, 
after the assumption of this last appellative. He 
would not degrade the name of Lucius by an 
unfinished production, and to all that he regarded 
ti."?, finished he continued to subscribe Junius as 
a still more popular signature. 

An attempt, also, lor the same reason, was 
once made by another correspondent, to publish 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



therefore, together with such others as are 
equally and indisputably genuine, are now 
added to the acknowledged letters of 
Junius, to render his producdons complete/ 

It is no objection to their genuineness 
that they were omitted by Junius in his 
own edition published by Mr Woodfall :— 
there is a material difference between print- 
ing a complete edition of the letters of 
Junius, and a complete edition of the letters 
that appeared under this name. The first 
was the main object of Junius himself, and 
it was not necessary, therefore, that he 
should have extended it to letters composed 
by him under any other signature, except- 
ing indeed those of Philo-Junius, which it 
was expedient for him to avow ; the second 
is the direct design of the edition before 
us ; — and it would be inconsistent with it 
to suppress any of his letters, under what 
signature soever they may have appeared, 
that possess sufficient interest to excite the 
attention of the public. 

The first of the letters (signed Atticus) 
was written in the beginning of August, 
1768. It takes a general, and by no means 
an uncandid, survey of the state of the 

under the signature of Junius ; but the letter 
was refused to be inserted with that nama by the 
printer, who signified his refusal in one of his 
notices to his correspondents. Yet it is curious 
to observe, that one or two spurious letters under 
the signature of Philo-Junius, found their way, 
as genuine epistles, into the P. A. (probably 
from the casual absence of the editor), if we may 
determine from the following statement written 
immediately after Junius's public avowal that 
the letters subscribed Philo-Junius were his own 
productions. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 

A paragraph having appeared in your 
paper of Saturday last, intimating that ' you 
nave the author's consent to declare that the 
letters published in that paper under the signa- 
ture of Philo-Junius are written by Junius,' I 
take the liberty of acquainting you and the 
public, that during the course of the year? 1768 
and 1769 several letters under that signature 
were written and inserted in the Public Adver- 
tiser, not by Junius, but by 

Your humble servant, 

Oct. 21, 1771. G. F. 

' [The printer presumes not to doubt the 
assertion of his correspondent, though it is not 



nation at that period, and particularly in 
regard to its funded property, the alarming 
and dangerous depression of which, from 
the still hostile appearance of France, the 
prospect of a rupture with the American 
colonies, the wretchedness of the pubUc 
finances, and the imbecility of the existing 
administration, struck the writer so forcibly 
as to induce him, as he tells us, to transfer 
his property from the funds to, what he 
conceived, the more solid security of landed 
estate. The conclusion of this letter ex- 
hibits so much of the essential style and 
manner of Junius, that it has every claim 
to be copied in this place as affording an 
internal proof of identity of pen. 

' We are arrived at that point when new 
taxes either produce nothing, or defeat the 
old ones, and when new duties only operate 
as a prohibition : yet these are the times 
when every ignorant boy thinks himself fit 
to be a minister. Instead of attendance to 
objects of national importance, our worthy 
governors are contented to divide their tim.e 
between private pleasures and ministerial 
intrigues. Their activity is just equal to 
the persecution of a prisoner in the King's 

possible for him to charge his memory with the 
circumstances at this distance of time.]' The 
printer might, however, with great safety have 
denied this assertion of G. F., which on the face 
of it bears evident marks of inaccuracy, as the 
first letter of Junius published in the genuine 
edition bears date January 21, T769, and the 
only one under that signature printed in 1768 is 
Miscellaneous Letter, No. LII., which did not 
receive support from an auxiliary signature of 
any kind. The fact is that the only Philo-Junius 
not genuine is one which appeared in the P. A. 
of November 8, 1771, and was the next day dis- 
avowed bj'-the printer. Philo-Junius, No. XXXI. 
was originally published in the Public Advertiser 
under the signature of Moderatus. 

^ When the late Mr Woodf.ill, so early as the 
summer of 1769, had an intention of re-publish- 
ing such of the Letters of Junius as had already 
appeared in the Public Advertiser, the author, in 
Private Letter, No. 7, observed to the printer, 
' Do with my letters e.xactly what you please. 
I should think that to make a better figure than 
Newberry, some others of my letters may be 
added, and so throw out an hint, that you have 
reason to suspect they are by the same author. 
If you adopt this plan, I shall point out those 
which I would recommend ; for, you know, I do 
not, nor indeed have I time to give equal care to 
them all.' 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



Bench, and to the honourable struggle of 
providing for their dependants. If there be 
a good man in the king's service they dis- 
miss him of course ; and when bad i ews 
arrives, instead of uniting to consider of a 
remedy, their time is spent in accusing and 
reviling one another. Thus the debate con- 
cludes in som^e half misbegotten measure, 
which is left to execute itself. Away they 
go : one retires to his country house ; a?iother 
is engaged at an horse race ; a third has an 
appointment with a prostitute ; a?id as to 
their country, they leave her, like a cast off 
mistress, to perish under the diseases they 
have given her.' 

It was just at this period that the very ex- 
traordinary step occurred of the dismissal of 
sir Jeffery Amherst from his government of 
Virginia, for the sole purpose, as it should 
seem, of creating a post for the earl of 
Hillsborough's intimate friend lord Boute- 
tort, who had completely ruined himself by 
gambling and extravagance. This post had 
been expressly given to sir Jeffery for life, 
as a reward for his past services in America, 
and it was punctiliously stiptUated that a 
personal residence would be dispensed with. 
It was an atrocity well worthy of public attack 
and condemnation ; and the keen vigilance 
of J UNIUS, which seems first to have traced it 
out, hastened to expose it to the public in 
all its indecency and outrage, and with the 
warmth of a personal friendship for the vete- 
ran hero. The subject being of a different 
description from that he had engaged in 
under the signature of Atticus, he assumed a 
new name, and for the first time sallied forth 
under that of Lucius, subscribed to a letter 
addressed to the earl of Hillsborough, min- 
ister for the American department, and pub- 
hshed in the PubUc Advertiser, Aug. loth, 
1768. A vindication, or rather an apology, 
was entered into, by three or four corre- 
spondents under different signatures, but 
almost every one of whom was regarded by 
Junius, and indeed by the public at large, 
as the earl of Hillsborough himself, or some 
individual writer under his immediate con- 
troul ; thus assuming a mere diversity of 
mask the better to accomplish the purpose 



of a defence. Lucius Junius followed up the 
contest without sparing, — the minister be- 
came ashamed of his conduct, and sir 
Jeffery, within a few weeks after his dismiss- 
al and the resignation of two regiments 
which he had commanded, was restored to 
the command of one of them, and appoint- 
ed to that of another ; and in May, 1776, 
was created a peer of the realm, which the 
duke of Grafton had refused him, under the 
strange and impoUtic assertion that he had 
not fortune enough to maintain such a dig- 
nity with the spleiidotir it required. The 
sarcastic remark of Lucius upon this observ- 
ation of his Grace, is entitled to attention, 
as identifying him with Junius in his pe- 
culiar severity of reproach. 

' The duke of Grafton's idea of the pro- 
per object of a British peerage differs very 
materially from mine. His Grace, in the 
true spirit of business, looks for nothing but 
an opulent fortune ; meaning, I presume, 
the fortune which can purchase, as well 
as maintain a title. We understand his 
Grace, and know who dictated that ar- 
ticle. He has declared the terms on which 
Jews, gamesters, pedlers, and contractors 
(if they have sense enough to take the hint), 
may rise without difficulty into British peers. 
There was a time indeed, though not with- 
in his Grace's memory, when titles were the 
reward of public virtue, and when the crown 
did not think its revenue ill employed in 
contributing to support the honours it had 
bestowed. It is true his Grace's family de- 
rive their wealth and greatness from a dif- 
ferent origin, from a system which he, it 
seems, is determined to revive. His con- 
fession is frank, and well becomes the can- 
dour of a young man, at least. I dare say, 
that if either his Grace or your Lordship had 
had the command of a seven years' war in 
America, you would have taken care that 
poverty, however honourable, should not 
have been an objection to your advance- 
ment ; — you would not have stood in the 
predicament of sir Jeffery Amherst, who is 
refused a title of honour, because he did not 
create a fortune equal to it, at the expense 
of the pubUc' 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



He is not less severe upon lord Hillsbo- 
rough in a succeeding letter ; and the editor 
extracts the following passage for the same 
purpose he has introduced the preceding. 

'That you are a civil, polite person is 
true. Few men imderstand the little morals 
better or observe the great ones less than 
your Lordship. You can bow and smile in 
an honest man's face, while you pick his 
pocket. These are the virtues of a court, 
in which your education has not been neg- 
lected. In any other school you might have 
learned that simplicity and integrity are 
worth them all. Sir Jeffery Amherst was 
fighting the battles of his country, while 
you, my lord, the darUng child of prudence 
and urbanity, were practising the generous 
arts of a courtier, and securing an honour- 
able interest in the antechamber of a fa- 
vourite.' 

Having thus signally triumphed in the 
affair of sir Jeffery Amherst, our invisible 
state-satyrist now returned to the subject he 
had commenced under the signature of At- 
ticus, and pursued it in three additional 
letters with the same signature, from the 
beginning of October till the close of No- 
vember, in the same year ; offering a few 
general remarks upon collateral topics, in 
two or three letters signed Brutus. The 
characteristics of Junius are often as con- 
spicuous here as in any letters he ever 
wrote : it will be sufficient to confine our- 
selves to two passages, since two competent 
witnesses are as good as a thousand. The 
following is his description of the prime 
minister of the day. 

' When the duke of Grafton first entered 
into office, it was the fashion of the times to 
suppose that young men might have wisdom 
without experience. They thought so them- 
selves, and the most important affairs of 
this country were committed to the first trial 
of their abilities. His Grace had honour- 
ably fleshed his maiden sword in the field 
of opposition, and had gone through all the 
discipline of the minority with credit. He 
dined at Wildman's, railed at favourites, 
looked up to lord Chatham with astonish- 
ment, and was the declared advocate of Mr 



Wilkes. It afterwards pleased his Grace to 
enter into administration with his friend lord 
Rockingham, and in a very little time it 
pleased his Grace to abandon him. He 
then accepted of the treasury upon terms 
which lord Temple had disdained. For a 
short time his submission to lord Chatham 
was unlimited. He could not answer a pri- 
vate letter without lord Chatham's permis- 
sion. I presume he was then learning his 
trade, for he soon set up for himself. Until 
he declared himself the minister, his cha- 
racter had been but little understood. From 
that moment a system of conduct, directed 
by passion and caprice, not only reminds 
us that he is a young man, but a young 
man without solidity of judgment. One day 
he desponds and threatens to resign, the 
next he finds his blood heated, and swears to 
his friends he is determined to go on. In 
his public measures we have seen no proof 
either of ability or consistency. The Stamp 
Act had been repealed (no matter how un- 
wisely) under the preceding administration. 
The colonies had reason to triumph, and 
were returning to their good humour. The 
point was decided, when this young man 
thought proper to revive it without either 
plan or necessity ; he adopts the spirit of 
Mr Grenville's measures, and renews the 
question of taxation in a form more odious 
and less effectual than that of the law which 
had been repealed.' 

The following is his character of the 
members of the cabinet generally. ' The 
school they were bred in taught them how 
to abandon their friends, without deserting 
their principles. There is a littleness even 
in their ambition ; for money is their first 
object. Their professed opinions upon some 
great points are so different from those of 
the party with which they are now united, 
that the council-chamber is become a 
scene of open hostilities. While the fate of 
Great Britain is at stake, these worthy coun- 
sellors dispute without decency, advise with- 
out sincerity, resolve without decision, and 
leave the measure to be executed by the 
man who voted against it. This, I con- 
ceive, is the last disorder of the state. The 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



consultation meets but to disagree, opposite 
medicines are prescribed, and the last fixed 
on is changed by the hand that gives it. ' 

The attention paid to these philippics, 
and the celebrity they had so considerably 
acquired, stimulated the author to new and 
additional exertions : and having in the 
beginning of the ensuing year completed 
another with more than usual elaboration 
and polish, which he seems to have intended 
as a kind of introductory address to the 
nation at large, he sent it forth under the 
name of Junius (a name he had hitherto 
assumed but once), to the office of the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, in which journal it appeared 
on Saturday, January 21, 1769. The popu- 
larity expected by the author from this per- 
formance was more than accomplished ; and 
what in some measure added to his fame, 
was a reply (for the Public Advertiser was 
equally open to all parties) from a real 
character of no small celebrity both as a 
scholar and as a man of rank, sir Wm 
Draper ; principally because the attack 
upon his Majesty's ministers had extended 
itself to lord Granby, at that time com- 
mander in chief, for whom sir WiUiam 
professed the most cordial esteem and 
friendship. 

Sir Wm Draper appears to have been a 
worthy, and, on the whole, an independent 
man ; and lord Granby w^as perhaps the 
most honest and immaculate of his Majesty's 
ministers. Junius did not begin the dis- 
pute with the former, and seems, from, a 
regard for his character, to have continued 
it unwillingly : ' My answer, ' says he to 
him in his last letter,^ upon a second assault, 
and altogether without reason, ' shall be 
short ; for I write to you with reluctance, 
and I hope we shall now conclude our cor- 
respondence for ever ! ' At the latter he 
had only glanced incidentally (for upon the 
whole he approved his conduct),' and seems 
rather to have done so on account of the 



^ Letter XXV. 

^ See his opinion of lord Granby given under 
the name of Lucius, in the Miscellaneous Letters, 
Letter XXXV. ; as also in the note at the close 
of Letter VII.. 



company he consorted with, than from any 
gross mis.deeds of his own. Nothing could 
therefore have been more improvident or 
impolitic than this attack of sir Wm Dra- 
per : if volunteered in favour of the ministry, 
it is impossible for a defence to have been 
worse planned ; — for by confining the vin- 
dication to the individual that was least 
accused, it tacitly admits that the charges 
advanced against all the rest w^ere well 
founded ; while, if volunteered in favour of 
lord Granby alone, it might easily have been 
anticipated by the writer that his visionary 
opponent would be hereby challenged to 
bring forward peccadillos which would 
otherwise never be heard of, and that he 
would not fail, at the same time, to scrutin- 
ize thecharacter of sir William himself, and 
to ascribe this act of precipitate zeal to an 
interested desire of additional promotion in 
the army. It was too much for sir William 
to expect that Junius would be hurried 
into an intemperate disclosure of his real 
name by a swaggering offer to measure 
swords with him ; while the following re- 
buke was but a just retaliation for his 
challenge. 

' Had you been originally and without 
provocation attacked by an anonymous 
writer, you would have some right to de- 
mand his name. But in this cause you are 
a volunteer. You engaged in it with the 
unpremeditated gallantry of a soldier. You 
were content to set your name in opposition 
to a man who would probably continue in 
concealment. You understood the terms 
upon which we were to correspond, and 
gave at least a tacit assent to them. After 
voluntarily attacking me under the character 
of Junius, what possible right have you to 
know me under any other? Will you for- 
give me if I insinuate to you, that you fore- 
saw some honour in the apparent spirit of 
coming forward in person, and that you 
were not quite indifferent to the display of 
your literary qualifications ? ' 

In reality Junius, though a severe sat)T-- 
ist, was not in his general temper a male- 
volent writer, nor an ungenerous man. No 
one has ever been more ready to admit the 



TO 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



brilliant talents of sir William Blackstone 
than himself, or to apply to his Comment- 
aries for legal information, .while reprobat- 
ing his conduct in the unconstitutional 
expulsion of Mr Wilkes from the House of 
Commons. ' If I were personally your 
enemy,' says he in his letter to him upon 
this subject, ' i should dwell with a ma- 
lignant pleasure upon those great and tiseful 
qualifications which you certainty possess, 
and by which you once acquired, though 
they could not preserve to you, the respect 
and esteem of your country ; I should 
enumerate the honours you have lost, and 
the virtues you have disgraced : but having 
no private resentments to gratify, I think it 
sufficient to have given my opinion of your 
public conduct, leaving the punishment it 
deserves to your closet and to yourself.' 

The rescue of general Gansel, by means 
of a party of guards, from the hands of the 
sheriff's officers, after they had arrested 
him for debt, was an outrage upon the law 
which well demanded castigation ; and the 
attempt to quash this transaction on the 
part of the minister, instead of delivering 
the culprits over to the punishment they 
had merited, was an outrage of at least 
equal atrocity, and demanded equal repro- 
bation. The severity with which the min- 
ister was repeatedly attacked by Junius on 
this subject is still well known to many : 
but the reason is not yet knov^n to any one, 
perhaps, why the latter suddenly dropped 
this subject, after having positively declared 
in his letter of November 15, 1769, p. 209, 
'if the gentlemen, whose conduct is in 
question, are not brought to a trial, the 
duke of Grafton shall hear from me again.' 
From his Private Letters to Mr Woodfall, 
we shall now learn that he was solely actu- 
ated in his forbearance by motives of hu- 
manity : 'The only thing,' says he in a 
note alluding to this transaction, ' that 
hinders my pushing the subject of my last 
letter, is really the fear of ruining that poor 



devil Gansel, and those other blockheads.'^ 
In like manner having been betrayed by 
the first rumours of the day into what he 
afterwards found to have been too atrocious 
an opinion, and expressed himself with too 
indignant a warmth upon the conduct of 
Mr Vaughan in his well-known attempt to 
purchase of the duke of Grafton the reversion 
of a patent place in Jamaica, he hastened to 
make him both publicly and privately all 
the reparation in his power, ' I think my- 
self obliged,' says he in a letter to the duke 
of Grafton, ' to do this justice to an injured 
man, because I was deceived by the appear- 
ances thrown out by your Grace, and have 
frequently spoken of his conduct with indig- 
nation. If he really be, what I think him, 
honest, though mistaken, he^ will be happy 
in recovering his reputation, though at the 
expense of his understanding.'^ Vaughan 
himself had so high an opinion of our 
author's integrity, though a total stranger 
to him, that he entrusted him with his pri- 
vate papers upon the subject in question, 
which Junius in return took care to employ 
to Vaughan's advantage.^ 

From the extraordinary effect produced 
by his first letter under the signature of Ju- 
nius, he resolved to adhere to this signature 
exclusively in all his subsequent letters, in 
which he took more than ordinary pains, 
and which alone he was desirous of having 
attributed to himself ; while to other letters 
composed with less care, and merely ex- 
planatory of passages in his more finished 
addresses, or introduced for some other 
collateral purpose, he subscribed some ran- 
dom name which occurred to him at the mo- 
ment. The letters of Philo Junius are alone 
an. exception to this remark. These he al- 
ways intended to acknowledge; and in truth 
they are for the most part composed with 
so much of the peculiar style and finished 
accuracy of the letters of Junius, properly 
so called, that it would have required but 
httle discernment to have regarded the two 



See Private Letter, No. 11. ^ Page 225. examined these papers, and especially the pas- 

3 Compare his private letter to Woodfall, Dec. sage, 'You laboured then, by every species of 
12, 1769, No. 15, with his public letter to the false suggestion, and even by publishmg coun- 
duke of Grafton, February 14, 1770, after he had , terfeit letters, &;c.' Page 225. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



correspondents as the same person under 
diiferent characters, — idem et alter — if Ju- 
nius himself had not at length admitted 
them to be his own productions, which he 
expressly did, in an authorized note from 
the printer, inserted in the Public Advertiser, 
Oct. 19, 1771. ' The auxihary part of Phi- 
lo Junius,' says he in his Preface, p. 115, 
' was indispensably necessary to defend or 
explain particular passages in Junius, in 
answer to plausible objections; but the sub- 
ordinate character is never guilty of the in- 
decorum of praising his principal. The 
fraud was innocent, and I always intended 
to explain it.' Yet whatever were the sig- 
natures he assumed, or the loose paragraphs 
he occasionally addressed to the public, 
without a signature of any kind, we have 
his own assertion, that from the time of his 
corresponding, as Junius, with the editor 
of the Public Advertiser, he never wrote in 
any other newspaper. ' I believe, ' says he, 
' I need not assure you that I have never 
writtenin any other paper since I began with 
yours ; ' Private Letter, No. 7. So also in 
another Private Letter, No. 13 : 'I some- 
times change my signature, but could have 
no reason to change z'/^^/o/^r, especially for 
one that does not circulate half so much as 
yours.' 

That he was not only a man of highly 
cultivated general talents and education, but 
who had critically and successfully studied 
the language, the law, the constitution, and 
history of his native country is indubitable. 
Yet this is not all ; the proofs are just as 
clear that he was also a man of independent 
fortune, that he moved in the immediate 
circle of the court, and was intimately ac- 
quainted, from its first conception, with al- 
most every pubhc measure, every ministe- 
rial intrigue, and every domestic incident. 

That he was a man of easy, if not of af- 
fluent circumstances, is unquestionable from 
the fact that he never could be induced in 
any way or shape to receive any acknow- 
ledgment from the proprietor of the Public 
Advertiser, for the great benefit and popu- 
larity he conferred on this paper by his 
writings, and to which he was fairly entitled. 



When the first genuine edition of his letters 
was on the point of publication, Mr Wood- 
fall again urged him either to accept half 
its profits, or to point out some public 
charity or other institution to which an 
equal sum might be presented. His reply 
to this request is contained in a paragraph 
of one of his Private Letters, Xo. 59, and con- 
fers credit on both the parties. ' What you 
say about the profits is very handsome. I 
like to deal with such men. As for myself, 
be assured that / am far above all pecu7iiary 
views, and no other person I think has any 
claim to share with you. Make the most of 
it, therefore, and let all your views in life be 
directed to a solid, however moderate, in- 
dependence : without it no man can be 
happy, nor even honest." In this last sentence 
he reasoned from the sphere of life in which 
he was accustomed to move; and, confining it 
to this sphere, the transactions of every day 
show us that he reasoned correctly. It is an 
additional proof, as well of his affluence as 
of his generosity, that not long after the 
comm.encement of his correspondence with 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, he 
wrote to him as follows : ' For the matter of 
assistance, be assured that, if a question 
should arise upon any writings of mine, you 
shall not want it ;— in point of money, be 
assured you shall never suffer.' ^ In perfect 
and honourable consonance with which, 
when the printer was at length involved in 
a prosecution in consequence of JUNiUS's 
letter to the King, he wrote to him as fol- 
lows : ' If your affair should come to a 
trial, and you should be found guilty, you 
will then let me know what expense falls 
particularly on yourself : for I understand 
you are engaged with other proprietors. 
Some way or other j'(??i; shallbe reimbursed. ' " 
' As you have told us,' says sir W. Dra- 
per, in his last letter to Junius, 'of your 
importance ; and that you are a person of 
rank and fortune, and above a common 
bribe, you may, in all probabiUty, be not un- 
known to his Lordship (earl of Shelbume) 



^ Private Letter, No. 6, dated Aug. 6, 1769, 
^ Private Letter, No. 19. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



who can satisfy )'-ou of the truth of what I 
say." ^ Sir William alludes, in this passage, 
to a short public note of Junius to the 
printer of the Pubhc Advertiser, addressed 
in consequence of some verses which had 
just appeared in that paper, entitled ' The 
tears of Sedition on the death of Junius ; ' 
in which he observes : ' It is true I have re- 
fused offers which a more prudent or a more 
interested man would have accepted. 
Whether it be simplicity or virtue in me, I 
can only affirm that / am in eat-nest, be- 
cause I am convinced, as far as my under- 
standing is capable of judging, that the 
present ministry are driving this country to 
destruction; a.ndyo2i, I think. Sir, may be 
satisfied that my rank and fortune place me 
above' a common bribe.' ^ Sir WiUiam 
sneers at the appeal, and treats it as the 
mere unfounded boast of a man of arrogance 
and invisibility ; but the reader now sees 
sufficiently that it had a soHd foundation to 
rest upon. 

That Junius moved in the immediate 
circle of the court, and was intimately and 
confidentially connected, either directly or 
indirectly, with all the public offices of 
government, is, if possible, still clearer 
than that he was a man of independent 
property ; for the feature that peculiarly 
characterized him, at the time of his writing, 
and that cannot even now be contemplated 
without surprise, was the facility with which 
he became acquainted with every ministe- 
rial manceuvre, whether public or private, 
from almost the very instant of its concep- 
tion. At the first moment the partisans of 
the prime minister were extolling his official ; 
integrity and virtue, in not only resisting j 
the terms offered by Mr Vaughan for the ! 
purchase of the reversion of a patent place i 
in Jamaica, but in commencing a prosecu- ! 
tion against Vaughan for thus attempting 

I Page 194. 

See Miscellaneous Letters, No. LIV. 

3 Private Letter, No. 10. 

'* The f jUowing are two of the paragraphs 
alluded to in Private Letter, No. 42. 

' The earl of Hertford is most honourably em- 
ployed as terrier to find out the clergyman that 
married the duke of Cumberland, an errand well 



to corrupt him, Junius, in his letter of 
Nov. 29, 1769, p. 209, exposed this af- 
fectation of coyness, as he calls it,, by 
proving that the minister was not only privy 
to, but a party concerned in, the sale of 
another patent place, though the former 
had often been disposed of before in a 
manner somewhat if not altogether similar. 
The particulars of this transaction are given 
in his letter to the duke of Grafton, Dec. 
12, 1769, p. 210, and in his private 
note to Mr Woodfall of the same date, 
No. 15. The rapidity with which the affair 
of general Gansell reached him has been 
already noticed. In his letter to the duke 
of Bedford he narrates facts which could 
scarcely be known but. to persons immedi- 
ately acquainted with the family. And 
when the printer was threatened with a 
prosecution in consequence of this letter, 
he says to him in a private note, ' it is 
clearly my opinion that you have nothing 
to fear from the duke of Bedford. I reserve 
some things expressly to awe him in case 
he should think of bringing you before the 
House of Lords. I am sure I can threaten 
him privately with such a storm, as would 
make him tremble even in his grave.' ^ He 
was equally acquainted with the domestic 
concerns of lord Hertford's family. '^ Of 
a Mr Swinney, a correspondent of the 
printer's, he observes in another confidential 
letter, ' That Swinney is a wretched but a 
dangerous fool : he had the impudence to 
go to lord G. Sackville, whom he had never 
spoken to, and to ask him whether or no he 
was the author of Junius — take care of 
him.' 5 This anecdote is not a little curious : 
the fact was true, and occurred but a short 
period before the letter was written : but 
how Junius, unless he had been lord 
Sackville himself, should have been so soon 
acquainted with it, baffles all conjecture. 



fitted to the man. He might, however, be much 
better employed in marrying his daughters at 
the public expense. Witness the promise of an 
Irish peerage to Mr S — t, &c., &c.' 

' Nobody is so vociferous as the earl of Hert- 
ford on the subject of the late unprecedented 
marriage ! ' 

S Private Letter, No. 5. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



13 



In reality several persons to whom this 
transaction has been related, connecting it 
with other circumstances of a similar tend- 
ency, have ventured, but too precipitately, 
to attribute the letters of Junius to his 
Lordship.^ 

His secret intelligence respecting pubUc 
transactions is as extraordinary. The accu- 
racy with which he first dragged to general 
notice the dismission of sir Jeffery Amherst 
from his governorship of Virginia has been 
already glanced at. ' You may assure the 
public,' says he, in a Private Letter, Jan. 
17, 1771, ' that a squadron of four ships of 
the line is ordered to be got ready with all 
possible expedition for the East Indies. It 
is to be commanded by commodore Spry. 
Without regarding the language of ignorant 
or interested people, depend upon the as- 
surance / give you, that every man in 
administration looks upon wai* as inevit- 
able.' ^ • 

But it would be endless to detail every 
instance of early and accurate information 
upon political subjects with which his public 
and private letters abound. In many cases 
he was able to indicate even to the printer 
of the Public Advertiser himself the real 
names of those who corresponded with him 
under fictitious signatures. ' Your Veridi- 
cus,' says he in one letter, 'is Mr Whit- 
worth. 3 I assure you I have not confided in 
him.' "^ 'Your Lycurgus,' he observes in 
another letter, S ' is a Mr Kent, a young 
man of good parts upon town.' 

Thus widely informed, and applying the 
information he was possessed of with an 

'^ In the Miscellaneous Letters, No. VII., 
the reader will meet with the following pas- 
sage, pretty conclusively showing the little 
ground there ever has been for any such opin- 
ion. ' I believe the best thing I can do will 
be to consult with my lord G. Sackville. His 
character is known and respected in Ireland as 
much as it is here ; and I know he loves to be 
stationed in the rear as well as myself.' The 
letter from which the above is an extract, inde- 
pendently of its containing the style and senti- 
ments of Junius, is thus additionally brought 
home to him by the printer's customary acknow- 
ledgment in the P. A. being followed by the 
subjoined observation : ^ Our friend and corre- 
spondent C. will always find the utmost attention 
paid to his favours.' 



unsparing hand, to purposes of general 
exposure in every instance of political de- 
linquency, it cannot but be supposed that 
Junius must have excited a host of enemies 
in every direction, and that his safety, per- 
haps his existence, depended alone upon 
his concealment. Of this he was sufficiently 
sensible. In his last letter to sir W. Dra- 
per, who had endeavoured by every means 
to stimulate him to a disclosure of himself, 
he observes, ' As to me, it is by no means 
necessary that I should be exposed to the 
resentment of the worst and the most 
powerful men in this country, though I may 
be indifferent about yours. Though you 
would fight, there are others who would 
assassinate' ^ To the same effect is the 
following passage in a confidential letter to 
Mr Woodfall. ' I must be more cautious 
than ever : I am sure I should not survive 
a discovery three days ; or, if I did, they 
would attaint me by bill.' ^ On many occa- 
sions, therefore, notwithstanding all the calm- 
ness and intrepidity he affected in his public 
letters, it is not to be wondered at that he 
should betray some feelings of apprehension 
in his confidential intercourse. In one of 
his Private Letters, indeed, he observes, 
' As to me, be assured that it is not in the 
nature of things that they (the Cavendish 
family), or you, or anybody else, should ever 
know me, unless I make myself known: all 
arts, or enquiries, or rewards, would be 
equally ineffectual.' * But in other letters 
he seems not a little afraid of detection or 
surmise. ' Tell me candidly,' he says, at an 
early period of his correspondence with Mr 
Woodfall under the signature of Junius, 
' whether you know or suspect who I 



^ Private Letter, No. 28. The knowledge of 
this preparation was communicated four days 
before the meeting of parliament : the war how- 
ever did not take place ; but the preparation is 
now known to have been a fact, the ministry 
being themselves fearful that the temper of 
parliament would have forced them into hostili- 
ties, from which in truth they very narrowly 
escaped. See note to the Private Letter of this 
No. 

3 Richard Whitworth, Esq.,M.P. for Stafford. 

4 Private Letter, No. 6. 5 Id., No. 5. 
6 Letter XXV. 7 Private Letter, No. 41. 

8 Private Letter, No. 10. 



14 



PRELLMINARY ESSAY. 



am.' ^ ' You must not write to me again,' 
he observes in another letter, ' but be 
assured I will never desert you.' ^ ' Upon 
no account, nor for any reason what- 
soever, are you to write to me until I 
give you notice,' -^ ' Change to the Somerset 
Coffee-house, and let no mortal know the 
alteration. I am persuaded you are too 
honest a man to contribute in any way to 
my destruction. Act honourably by me, 
and at a proper time you shall know me.' ^ 
The Somerset Coffee-house formed only 
one of a great variety of places, at which 
answers and other parcels from the printer 
of the Public Advertiser were ordered to be 
left. No plan indeed could be better de- 
vised for secrecy than that by which this 
correspondence was maintained. A com- 
mon name, such as was by no means likely 
to excite any peculiar attention, was first 
chosen by Junius, and a common place of 
deposit indicated : — the parcels from Junius 
himself were sent direct to the printing- 
office, and whenever a parcel or letter in 
return was waiting for him., the Public Ad- 
vertiser announced it in the notices to its 
correspondents by such signals as ' N. E. C 
— 'a letter,' 'Vindex shall be considered,' 
' C. in the usual place, ' ' an old correspond- 
ent shall be attended to,' the introductory 
C. being a little varied from that commonly 
used ; or by a line of Latin poetry. ' Don't 
always use,' says our author, 'the same 
signal : any absurd Latin verse will answer 
the purpose .' s And when the answer im- 
phed a mere negative or affirmative, it was 
communicated in the newspaper by a simple 

• Private Letter, No. 3. = Id., No. 18. 

3 Id, No. 47. 4 Id., No. 41. 

S Private Letter, No. 43. — As instances of 
these signals of different kinds the reader may 
accept the following, taken froni the Public Ad- 
vertiser according to their dates. 
August 12, 1771. A Correspondent may rest as- 
sured that his directions ever have been, and 
ever will be, strictlj' attended to. 



September 13. 


C. 


17- 


C. 


21. 


c. 


27. 


c. 


October 19. 


c. 


November 5. 


c. 


3. 


c. 



yes or no. The names of address more 
commonly assumed were Mr Wilham Mid- 
dleton, and Mr John Fretly ; and the more 
common places of address were the bar of 
the Somerset Coffee-house as stated above, 
that of the New Exchange, and Munday's 
in Maiden Lane, the waiters of which were 
occasionally feed ^ for their punctuality. But 
even these names and places of abode were 
varied for others as circumstances might 
dictate. 

By what conveyance Junius obtained 
his letters and parcels from the places at 
which they were left for him is not very 
clearly ascertained. From the passage 
quoted from his Private Letter, No. 10, as 
also from the express declaration in the 
Dedication to his own edition of his letters, 
that, he was at that time 'the sole deposit- 
ary of his own secret,' it should seem that 
he had also been uniformly his own mes- 
senger : yet in his Private Letter of January 
i8th, 1772, he observes, ' the gentleman 
who transacts the conveyancing part of our 
correspondence tells me there was much 
difficulty last night.' ^ In truth the diffi- 
culty and danger of his constantly perform- 
ing his own errand must have been extreme ; 
and it is more reasonable therefore to sup- 
pose that he employed some person on 
whom he could place an implicit reliance ; 
while to avoid the apparent contradiction 
between such a fact and that of his affirm- 
ing that he was the sole depositary of his 
own secret, it is only necessary to conceive 
at the same time that the person thus con- 
fidentially employed was not entrusted with 



November 12. 



December 



17. 
6 Private Letter, 



Vinde.x shall be considered. 

Die quibus in terris, et mihi 
eris magnus Apollo. 

Quid rides? de TE fabula 
narratur. 

Received. 

dicere verum 

Quid vetat ? 

Jam NOVA progenies coelo 
dimittitur alto. 

Received. 

Quis te MAGNE CATC taci- 
turn ? 

Infandum, regina ! jubes 

renovare dolorem. 
No. 39. 7 Ibid. No. 51, 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



15 



the full scope and object of his agency.^ 
He sometimes, as we learn from his own 
testimony, employed a common chairman 
as his messenger,'^ and perhaps this, after 
all, was the method most usually resorted to. 

That a variety of schemes were invented 
and actually in motion to detect him there 
can be no doubt ; but the extreme vigilance 
he at all times evinced, and the honourable 
forbearance of Mr Woodfall, enabled him 
to baffle every effort, and to persevere in his 
concealment to the last. ' Your letter,' says 
he in one of his private notes, ' was twice 
refused last night, and the waiter as often 
attempted to see the person who sent for it.' 2 

On another occasion his alarm was excited 
in consequence of various letters addressed 
to him at the printing-office, with a view, 
as he suspected, of leading to a disclosure 
either of his person or abode. ' I return 
you, ' says he in reply, ' the letters you sent 
me yesterday. A man who can neither 
write common English, nor spell, is hardly 
worth attending to. It is probably a trap 
for me : 1 should be glad, however, to 
know what the fool means. If he writes 
again, open his letter, and if it contain any- 
thing worth my knowing, send it : other- 
wise not. Instead of " C. in the usual place " 
say only ' ' a letter " when you have occasion 
to write to me again. I shall understand 
you.' •^ 

Some apprehension he seems to have 
suffered, as already observed, from the im- 
pertinent curiosity of Swinney ; but his re- 
sentment was chiefly roused by that of 
David Garrick, who appears from his own 
account, and from intelligence on which he 
fully relied, to have been pertinacious in his 
attempts to discover him. For three weeks 
or a month, he could scarcely ever write to 

^ Mr Jackson, the present respectable proprie- 
tor of the Ipswich Journal, who was at this time 
residing with the late I\Ir Woodfall, for the pur- 
pose of instruction in the London mode of con- 
ducting business, observed to the editor in a 
conversation on this subject, that he once saw a 
tall gentleman dressed in a light coat with bag 
and sword, throw into the office door opening 
in Ivy Lane, a letter from Junius, which he 
picked up and immediately followed the bearer 
of it into St Paul's Church-yard, where he got 



Mr Woodfall without cautioning him to be 
specially on his guard against Garrick : 
and under this impression alone, he once 
changed his address. ^ He wrote to Gar- 
rick a private note of severe castigation 
through the medium of the printer, which 
the latter, from an idea that it was unneces- 
sarily acrimonious, resubmitted to his con- 
sideration with a view of dissuading him 
from sending it, 6 upon which our author 
desired him to tell Garrick personally to 
desist, or he would be amply revenged 
upon him.. 'As it is important,' says he, 
' to deter him from meddhng, I desire you 
will tell him I am aware of his practices, 
and will certainly be revenged if he does 
not desist. An appeal to the public from 
Junius would destroy him.'" 

It is not impossible to form a plausible 
guess at the age of Junius, from a passage 
in one of his Private Letters ; an enquiry, 
which, though otherwise of httle or no con- 
sequence, is rendered in some measure im- 
portant, as a test to determine the validity 
of the claims that have been laid to his 
writings by different candidates or their 
friends. The passage referred to occurs in 
his letter to Woodfall, dated Nov. 27, 1771 : 
' after long experience of the world, ' says he, 
' I affirm before God, I never knew a rogue 
who was not unhappy.' ^ Now when this 
declaration is coupled with the two facts, 
that he made it under the repeated promise 
and intention of speedily disclosing himself 
to his correspondent,'' and that the corre- 
spondent thus schooled, by a moral axiom 
gleaned from his own ' lo?2o- experience of 
the world,' was at this very time something 
more than thirty years of age ; it seems ab- 
surd to suppose that JUNIUS could be much 



into a hackney coach and drove off. But whether 
this was ' the gentleman who transacted the con- 
veyancing part ' or Junius himself, it is impossi- 
ble to ascertain. 

^ See Private Letters, Nos. 58, and 65, note. 

3 Id., No. 58 

* Id., No. 12. _ S Id., No. 41. 

6 Compare Private Letter, No. 41, with No. 
43. The letter to Garrick will be found in the 
former of these. 

7 Private Letter, No. 43. S Jj No, aa. 
9Id., No. 41. 



i6 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



less than fifty, or that he affected an age he 
had not actually attained. 

There is another point in the history of 
his life, during his appearance as a pubHc 
writer, which for the same reason must not 
be suffered to pass by without observation, 
although otherwise it might be scarcely en- 
titled to notice ; and that is, that during a 
great part of this time, from January, 1769, 
to January, 1772, he uniformly resided in 
London, or its immediate vicinity, and that 
he never quitted his stated habitation for a 
longerperiod than a few weeks. This, too, we 
may collect from his private correspondence, 
compared with his public labours. No 
man but he, who with a thorough know- 
ledge of our author's style, undertakes to 
examine all the numbers of the Public Ad- 
vertiser for the three years in question, can 
have any idea of the immense fatigue and 
trouble he submitted to in composing other 
letters, under other signatures, in order to 
support the pre-eminent pretensions and 
character of Junius, attacked as it was by 
a multiplicity of writers in favour of admin- 
istration, to whom, as Junius, he did not 
chuse to make any reply whatever. Surely 
Junius himself, when he first undertook 
the office of public political censor, could 
by no means foresee the labour with which 
he was about to encumber himself. And 
instead of wondering that he should have 
disappeared at the distance of about five 
years, we ought much rather to be surprised 
that he should have persevered through 
half this period with a spirit at once so in- 
defatigable and invincible. Junius had no 
time for remote excursions, nor often for 
relaxation, even in the vicinity of the me- 
tropolis itself. 

Yet from his Private Letters we could al- 
most collect a journal of his absences, if not 
an itinerary of his httle tours : for he does 
not appear to have left London at any time 
without some notice to the printer, either 
of his intention, or of the fact itself upon 
his return home ; independently of which 
the frequency and regularity of his corre- 
spondence seldom allowed of distant travel. 
' I have been out of town,' says he, in his 



letter of Nov. 8, 1769, 'for three weeks ; 
and though I got your last, could not con- 
veniently answer it.' ^ — On another occasion, 
' I have been some days in the country, and 
could not conveniently send for your letter 
until this night : '^ and again, ' I must see 
proof-sheets of the Dedication and Preface ; 
and these, if at all, I must see before the 
end of next week." ^ In like manner, ' I 
want rest most severely, and am going to 
find it in the country for a few days.' '^ 

The last poUtical letter that ever issued 
under the signature of Junius was ad- 
dressed to lord Camden. It appeared in 
the Public Advertiser for Jan. 21, 1772, and 
followed the publication of his long and 
elaborate address to lord Mansfield upon 
the illegal bailing of Eyre ; and was de- 
signed to stimulate the ncble earl to a 
renewal of the contest which he had com- 
menced with the chief justice towards the 
close of the preceding session of parliament. 
It possesses the peculiarity of being the 
only encomiastic letter that ever fell from 
his pen under the signature of Junius. 
Yet the panegyric bestowed was not for the 
mere purpose of instigating lord Camden to 
the attack in question. There is sufficient 
evidence in his Private Letters that Junius 
had a very high, as well as a very just, 
opinion of the integrity of this nobleman ; 
and an ardent desire that the estimate he 
had formed of his integrity should be known 
to the world at large. In the whole course 
of his political creed there seems to have 
been but one point upon which they differ- 
ed, and that was the doctrine assented to 
by his Lordship, that the crown possesses 
a power in case of very urgent necessity, of 
suspending the operation of an act of the 
legislature. It is a mere speculative doc- 
trine, and Junius only incidentally alluded 
to it in a letter upon a very different sub- 
ject, s The disagreement upon this point 
seems eagerly to have been caught at, how- 
ever, by another correspondent in the Public 
Advertiser, who chose the signature of Scas- 

^ Private Letter, No. 11. ^ Id., No. 7. 

3Id., No. 45- 4 Id., No. 43. 

5 Letter LIX. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



17 



vola, apparently for the express purpose of 
involving the political satirist in a dispute 
with his lordship. ' Scaevola,* observes he 
in a private letter, ' I see is determined to 
make me an enemy to lord Camden. If 
it be not wilful malice, I beg you will sig- 
nify to him, that when I originally men- 
tioned lord Camden's declaration about the 
corn bill, it was without any view of dis- 
cussing that doctrine, and only as an in- 
stance of a singular opinion maintained by 
a man of great learning and integrity. 
Such an instance was necessary to the plan 
of my letter.'^ And again, shortly after- 
wards, finding that the communication had 
not been received as it ought to have been, 
* I should not trouble you or myself about 
that blockhead Scaevola, but that his absurd 
fiction of my being lord Camden's enemy 
has done harm. Every fool can do mis- 
chief, therefore signify to him what I said.' ^ 
Not satisfied however with this hint to the 
printer, he chose, at the same time, under 
the subordinate character of Philo-Junius, 
to settle the point, and preclude all pos- 
sibility of altercation by an address to the 
public, that should dexterously mark out 
this single difference in a mere speculative 
opinion ; and while it amply defended the 
view he had taken of the subject, should 
evince such an evident approbation of his 
Lordship's general conduct, as could not 
fail of being gratifying to him. This letter 
appeared in the Public Advertiser, Oct. 15, 
1771.3 

Lord Camden, however, was not induced 
by this earnest attempt and last letter of 
Junius to renew his attack upon lord 
Mansfield ; yet this was not the reason, or 
at least not the sole or primary reason, for 
JUNlus's discontinuing to write. It has 
already been observed, that so early as 
July, 1769, he began to entertain thoughts 
of dropping a character and signature which 
must have cost him a heavy series of labour, 
and frequently perhaps exposed him to no 
small peril. ' I really doubt ' says he, 
' whether I shall write any more under this 



^ Private Letter, No. 45. ^ Id., No. 46. 

3 Letter LX. ^ Private Letter, No. 5. 



signature. I am weary of attacking a set 
of brutes, whose writings are too dull to 
furnish me even with the materials of con- 
tention, and whose measures are too gross 
and direct to be the subject of argument, 
or to require illustration.' "* 

In perfect consonance with this declaration , 
in his reply to the printer, who had offered 
him half the profits of the letters at that 
time published under his own correction, 
or an equal sum for the use of any public 
institution he should chuse to name, he 
makes the following remark, of which a 
part has been already quoted on another 
occasion : ' As for myself, be assured that 
I zmfar above all pecuniary views, and no 
other person, I think, has any claim to 
share with you. Make the most of it there- 
fore, and let all your views in life be direct- 
ed to a solid, however moderate, independ- 
ence : without it no man can be happy, nor 
even honest. If I saw any prospect of 
uniting the city once more, I would readily 
continue to labour in the vineyard. When- 
ever Mr Wilkes can tell me that such an 
union is in prospect, he shall hear of me. 
Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntaie 
esse mutatd, aut debilitata virtute, aut 
animo frado^ vehementer errat.'^ 

Even so long afterwards as January 19, 
1773, in the very last letter we have any 
certain knowledge he ever addressed to Mr 
Woodfall, he urges precisely the same 
motives for his continuing to desist. ' I 
have seen the signals thrown out for your 
old friend and correspondent. Be assured 
that I have had good reason for not com- 
plying with them. In the present state of 
things, if I were to write again, I must be 
as silly as any of the horned cattle that run 
mad through the city, or as any of your 
wise aldermen. / meant the cause and the 
public : BOTH ARE GIVEN UP. I feel for 
the honour of this country, when I see that 
there are not ten men in it, who will unite 
and stand together upon any one question. 
But it is all alike vile and contemptible. 

5 Private Letter, No. 59. 'But if any one 
believes me to be changed in will, weakened in 
integrity, or broken in courage, he errs grossly.' 
2 



i8 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



You have never flinched that I know of ; 
and I shall always rejoice to hear of your 
prosperity. If you have any thing to com- 
municate (of moment to yourself), you may 
use the last address, and give a hint.'^ 

In effect from the dissolution of the con- 
solidated Whig party upon the death of 
George Grenville, the absurd divisions in 
the Bill of Rights Society, and the political 
separations in the city, our author had 
much reason to despair of the cause in 
which he had so manfully engaged. 

To the moral character of Junius this 
letter is of more value than all the popular 
addresses he ever composed in his hfe. It 
is impossible to suppose it to flow from the 
affectation of an honesty which did not exist 
in his heart. The circumstances under which 
it was sent altogether proliibit such an idea : 
unknown as he was, and unknown as he 
had now determined to continue, to his 
correspondent, there was no adequate 



^ Private Letter, No. 63. The signals here 
referred to were thrown out on the very morning 
of the day on wh:ch this letter was written, and 
consisted of the following Latin quotation, in- 
serted in the Pubhc Advertiser for January ig, 
1773, among the other answers to correspondents. 
Iteriimque, iteruniqite inoncbo. The printer, 
within a few weeks afterwards, availed himself 
of the liberty of making a communication to 
Junius by the last address, and in the Public 
Advertiser of March 8, gave the following hint : 
'The letter from an old friend and corre- 
spondent, dated January 19, came safe to hand, 
and his directions are strictly folloived, Qitod si 
qtiis existi7nat met, &:c.' The quotation is pe- 
culiarly happy : for it is not only a copy of what 
Junius had cited himself in his last Private 
Letter but one, and was hence sure to attract his 
attention, but is a smart replication to the passage 
in the letter it immediately refers to, ' yo?i have 
never flinched that I know of.' The subject of 
some part of the communication at this time 
made by the printer to Junius, the editor has 
been able to discover, by having accidentally 
found among Mr Woodfall's papers, and in his 
own hand-writing, a rough draft of one of the 
three letters of which it appears to have consisted. 
This letter the reader will meet with in the 
private correspondence, arranged according to 
its date, which is March 7, 1773, the day ante- 
cedent to the public notice given in the Public 
Advertiser as above. Among the answers to 
correspondents March 20, we find another signal 
of the very same kind in the following terms, 
' A7(t 7'oluntate esse ^nutatd ; ' and in the same 
place March 29, a third ensign under the follow- 
ingform, 'A ut debilitata virtiite ; ' both of which 



motive for his assuming the semblance of 
an integrity which he felt not, and which 
did not fairly belong to him. It was, it 
must have been, a pure, disinterested testi- 
monial of private esteem and public patriot- 
ism, consentaneous with the uniform tenor 
both of his open and his confidential his- 
tory, and conscientiously developing the real 
cause of his secession. 

In truth it must have been, as he himself 
states it, insanity, to have persisted any 
longer in any thing like a regular attack ; 
lord Camden had declined to act upon his 
suggestion ; the great phalanx of the Whig 
party was broken up by the death of Mr 
George Grenville ; the vanity and extreme 
jealousy of Oliver and Home had intro- 
duced the most acrimonious divisions into 
the Society for supporting the Bill of Rights ; 
and the leading palriols of the city had so 
intermixed their own private interests, and 
their own private squabbles with the public 



it will be observed, upon a comparison, are verbal 
continuations of JuNius's own quotation, and 
hence identify with double force the person to 
whom they relate. In the Public Advertiser of 
April 7, we find the following signal of a similar 
description, and it is the last we have been able 
to discover, ' I?ic qziibzis in terris.' It is pro- 
bable that these all related to matters of a 
personal concern, upon which, by the above 
private letter, the printer had still leave to ad- 
dress his correspondent : at least there is no 
reaeon for believing that Junius ever broke 
through the silence upon which he so inflexibly 
determined on January 19, or consented to re- 
appear before the public in any character what- 
ever. There were some very excellent letters 
signed Atticus that appeared in the Public Ad- 
vertiser between the dates of June 26, 1772, and 
October 14, 1773, and exhibit much of our 
author's style, spirit, and sentiments ; and which, 
hence, by some tolerable judges, have been 
actually ascribed to him : but for various reasons, 
independently of that afforded b}^ the above pri- 
vate letter, the editor is convinced they are not 
the production of Junius. The talents they 
afford proof of, though considerable, are in- 
ferior ; they contain attacks upon some states- 
men who were never attacked by Junius ; and 
it is well known from the following notice in- 
serted among the addresses to 'correspondents in 
the Public Advertiser for June 19, 1773, as well 
as from other facts, that there was at this period, 
and had been for some time past, another writer 
in this journal who assumed the name of Atticus. 
' Some circumstances render it necessary that the 
printer should communicate a line to Atticus, 
not his OLD CorresJ>07ide7it' 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



19 



cause, as to render this cause itself con- 
temptible in the eye of the people at large. 
He had already tried, but in vain, to awaken 
the different contending parties to a sense 
of better and more honourable motives ; to 
induce them to forego their selfish and in- 
dividual disputes, and to make a common 
sacrifice of them upon the altar of the con- 
stitution.^ Yet, at the same time, so smaU 
were his expectations of success, so mean 
his opinion of the pretensions of most of the 
leading demagogues of the day to a real 
love of their country, and so grossly had he 
himself been occasionally misrepresented 
by them, that in his confidential intercourse 
he bade his correspondent beware of en- 
trusting himself to them. ' Nothing,' says 
he, ' can be more express than my declar- 
ation against long parliaments : try Mr 
Wilkes once more i^who was in private 
possession of his seniimeiits upon this sub- 
jeer) ;^ speak for me in a most friendly but 
firm tone, that I will not submit to be any 
longer aspersed. Between ourselves, let me 
recommend it to you to be much upon your 
guard with patriots .'^ 

With his pubUc address to the people, 
therefore, in Letter LIX., he seems in the 
first instance to have resolved upon closing 
his labours, at least under the character of 
Junius, provided no beneficial eft'ect w^ere 
likely to result from it, and as the printer 
had expressed to him an earnest desire of 
publishing a genuine edition of his letters, 
in a collective form, in consequence of a 
variety of incorrect and spurious editions at 
that time circulating through the nation, he 
seems to have thought that a consent to 
such a plan would afford him a good 
ostensible motive for putting a finish to his 
pubhc career ; and on this account he not 
only acceded to the proposal, but under- 
took to superintend it as far as his invisi- 
bility might allow him ; and also to add a 
few notes, as well as a dedication and 
preface. 

^ See Junius, Letter LIX., and Private Let- 
ter, No. 65. 

= See Private Letter, No. 66. 
3 Private Letter, No. 44. 



Nothing can be more absurd than the idea 
entertained by some writers, that Junius 
himself was the previous editor of one or 
two of these irregular editions, and especi- 
ally of an edition published but a short time 
anterior to his own, audaciously enough 
entitled ' The genuine letters of Junius, to 
which are prefixed, anecdotes of the au- 
thor ;' ^ a pamphlet in which the anonym- 
ous anecdotist takes it for granted, from 
his very outset, that Junius and Edmund 
Burke were the same person, and then pro- 
ceeds to reason concerning the former, from 
the known or acknowledged works of the 
latter. 

It was not till the appearance of New- 
berry's edition, with which it is not pre- 
tended that our author had any concern, 
that even Woodfall himself had conceived 
an idea of the propriety of collecting these 
letters, and publishing them in an edition 
strictly genuine, in consequence of the 
numerous blunders by which the common 
editions were deformed ; of these New- 
berry's was, perhaps, the freest from mis- 
takes : yet Newberry's had so many, that 
our author, upon receiving a copy of it, 
addressed a note to Woodfall, begging him 
to hint to Newberry, that as he had thought 
proper to reprint his letters, he ought at 
least to have taken care to have corrected 
the errata : adding at the same time, ' I did 
not expect more than the life of a news- 
paper ; but if this man will keep me alive, 
let me live without being offensive.' s 

His answer upon Woodfall's application 
to him for leave to reprint his letters col- 
lectively, and subject to his own revisal, was 
as follows : ' I can have no manner of 
objection to your reprinting my letters, if 
you think it will answer, which I believe it 
might before Newberry appeared. If you 
determine to do it, give me a hint, and I 
will send you more errata (indeed they are 
innumerable) and perhaps a preface.' ^ It 
was on this occasion he added, as conceiv- 



4 See Mr Chalmers's Appendix to the Sup- 
plemental Apology, &c., p. 24. 

5 Private Letter, No. 4. 

6 Private Letter, No. 5. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



ing it might afford him a proper opportunity 
for a general close of the character, though 
so early in his correspondence, under the 
name of Junius, as July, 1769, 'I really 
doi;bt whether I shall write any more under 
this signature ; I am weary of attacking a 
set of brutes, &c.' ^ In answer to Wood- 
fall's next letter upon the same subject he 
observes, ' Do with my letters exactly as 
you please. I should think that, to make 
a better figure than Newberry, some others 
of my letters may be added, and so throw 
out a hint, that you have reason to suspect 
they are by the same author. If you adopt 
this plan, I shall point out those, which I 
would recommend ; for yozi know, I do not 
nor indeed have I time to give equal care to 
them all.' ^ 

The plan for publication, however, though 
it commenced thus early, was not matured 
till October, 177T : when it was determined 
that the work should comprise all the 
letters which had passed under the signa- 
tures of Junius and Philo-Junius to this 
period exclusively, and be occasionally en- 
riched by a selection of other letters under 
a variety of other signatures, such as will be 
found in the Miscellaneous Letters of the 
present edition ; which, independently of 
that of Philo-Junius, our author, as has 
been observed already, not unfrequently 
employed to explain what required explana- 
tion, or defend what demanded vindication, 
and which ;he himself thought sufficiently 
correct to associate with his more laboured 
productions. In the prosecution of this 
intention, however, he still made the two 
following alterations. Instead of closing 
the regular series of letters possessing the 



^ Private Letter, No. 6. ^ Id., No. 7. 

3 Letter LIX. 

4 Private Letter, No. 45. The reader will 
readily pardon, and perhaps thank us, for point- 
ing out to his particular attention the following 
exquisite paragraph with which the above letter 
closes, but which formed no part of it as origin- 
ally addressed to Mr Wilkes. It refers to an 
able argument that an excision of the rotten 
boroughs from the representative system might 
perhaps produce more mischief than benefit to 
the constitution. ' The man, who fairly and com- 
pletely answers this argument, shall have my 
thanks and my applause. My heart is already 



signature of Junius with that dated October 
5, 1771,^ upon the subject of ' the unhappy 
differences,' as he there calls them, ' which 
had arisen among the friends of the people, 
and divided them from each other'— he 
added five others which the events of the 
day had impelled him to write during the 
reprinting of the letters, notwithstanding 
the intention he had expressed of offering 
nothing further under this signature. And 
instead of introducing the explanatory 
letters written under other signatures, he 
confined himself, in order that the work 
might be .published before the ensuing 
session of parliament, to three justificatory 
papers alone : the first, under the title of 
' A Friend of Junius,' containing an answer 
to ' A Barrister at Law ; ' the second an 
anonymous declaration upon certain points 
on which his opinion had been mistaken or 
misrepresented ; and the third an extract 
from a letter to iNIr Wilkes, drawn up for 
the purpose of being laid before the Bill of 
Rights Society, with a view of vindicating 
himself from the charge of having written 
in favour of long parliaments and rotten 
boroughs. This last however was furnished, 
not by Mr Wilkes, but from his own notes ; 
' you shall have the extract, ' says he, ' to 
go into the second volume : it will he a 
short one.'-* 

Of the five letters added after he meant 
to have closed, and had actually begun to 
reprint his series, four of them are either 
expressly addressed to lord Mansfield, or 
incidentally relate to him, in consequence 
of his having illegally (as it was contended) 
admitted a felon of the name of John E^re 
to bail, who, although possessing a fortune 



with him. — I am ready to be converted. — I 
admire his morality, and would gladly subscribe 
to the articles of his faith. — Grateful, as I am, 
to the GOOD BEING, whose bounty has imparted 
to me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I 
hold myself proportionably indebted to him, 
from whose enlightened understanding another 
ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But 
neither should I think the most exalted faculties 
of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity ; 
nor any assistance, in the improvement of them, 
a subject of gratitude to my fellow-creature, if I 
were not satisfied, that really to inform the under- 
standing corrects and enlarges the heart.' 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



of nearly thirty thousand pounds sterUng, 
had stolen a quantity of paper in quires out 
of one of the pubHc offices at Guildhall, and 
was caught in the very theft. The other 
letter is addressed to the object of his steady 
and inveterate hatred, the duke of Grafton, 
upon the defeat of his attempt to transfer 
the duke of Portland's estate in Cumber- 
land, consisting of what had formerly been 
crown lands, to sir James Lowther, in order 
to assist the latter in securing his election 
for this county. 

Such, however, was his anxiety to get 
this work completed and published before 
the winter session of parliament, that he 
was ready to sacrifice the appearance of the 
whole of these additional letters, even that 
containing his elaborate accusation of lord 
Mansfield, and which he acknowledged to 
have cost him enormous pains, rather than 
that it should be delayed beyond this period. 
' I am truly concerned," says he in a private 
letter dated January 20, 1772, ' to see that 
the pubhcation of the book is so long 
delayed. It ought to have appeared before 
the meeting of parUament. By no means 
would I have you insert this long letter, if 
it make more than the difference of two 
days in the publication. Believe me, the 
delay is a real injury to the cause.' ^ 

The difficulties, however, of sending 
proofs and revises forward and backward 
w^ere so considerable, that the anxiety of the 
author was not gratified : parliament met, 
but the book was not published. Junius 
became extremely impatient ; yet still, in 
the most earnest terms, pressed its publica- 
tion before alderman Sawbridge's motion hi 
favour of trioDiial parliaments which was 
to be brought forward in the beginning of 
March. ' Surely, ' says he, in his private 
letter of February 17," ' you have misjudged 
it very much about the book. I could not 
have conceived it possible that you could 
protract the publication so long. At this 
time, particularly before Mr Sawbridge's 
motion, it would have been of singular use. 



^ Private Letter, No. 51. ^ Id. No. 53. 

3 The Letters were actually published March 3, 
and alderman Sawbridge's motion discussed the 



You have trifled too long with the public 
expectation : at a certain point of time the 
appetite palls : I fear you have already lost 
the season. The book, I am sure, will lose 
the greatest part of the effect I expected 
from it. — But I have done.' 

He was soon however consoled by intelli- 
gence from his friend Woodfall that, unduly 
as the book had been postponed, it was not 
for want of any exertions of his own ; and 
that late as the season was, it would still 
precede the expected motion of alderman 
Sawbridge.^ He, in consequence, replied 
as follows : ' I do you the justice to believe 
that the delay has been unavoidable. The 
expedient you propose, of printing the De- 
dication and Preface in the Public Adver- 
tiser is unadviseable. The attention of the 
public would then be quite lost to the book 
itself. I think your rivals will be dis- 
appointed : nobody will apply to them, 
when they can be supplied at the fountain- 
head. — All I can now say, is, make haste 
with the book.^ 

The Dedication, Preface, and the materi- 
als for his notes were all finished about the 
beginning of the preceding November (1771). 
The letters at large, excepting the first two 
sheets which were revised by the author 
himself, were from the difficulty of convey- 
ance entrusted to the correction of Mr 
Woodfall, with incidental amendments ob- 
tained, as they could be, by an interchange 
of letters. The Dedication and Preface were 
confided to the correction of Mr Wilkes.S 
with whose attention the author expresses 
himself well pleased. ' When you see Mr 
Wilkes,' says he in a note of February 29, 
1772, ' pray return him my thanks for the 
trouble he has taken. I wish he had taken 
more : ' ^ intimating hereby that there were 
still errors of which he was aware, and which 
he would have corrected if possible. 

Yet though he thus continued to adhere 
rigidly to his determination never again to 
appear before the public in his full dress, or 

ensuing day — which motion, however, was lost 
by a majority of 251 against 83. 

4 Private Letter, No. 56. S Id., No. 40, 

6 Id., No. 57. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



under the signature of Junius, as he ex- 
presses it in his Private Letter of November 
8, 1771, he did not object occasionally to 
introduce his observations and continue 
his severe strictures in a looser and less 
elaborate form, and under some appellative 
or other, that might not interfere with the 
claims of Junius as a whole, as in the case 
of his series of letters to lord Barrington, 
see No. CV., CVIL, &C. These, however, it 
was not easy, in spite of the characteristic 
style that still, to an acute eye, pervaded 
them, for the world at large to bring com- 
pletely home to the real writer, though 
many of them were frequently charged 
to the account of Junius by the political 
critics of the day, in different addresses to 
the printer upon this subject. 

To judge of the moral and pohtical cha- 
racter of Junius from his writings, as well 
private as public, he appears to have been 
a man of a bold and ardent spirit, tena- 
ciously honourable in his personal connex- 
ions, but vehement and inveterate in his 
enmities, and quick and irritable in con- 
ceiving them. In his state principles he 
was strictly constitutional, excepting perhaps 
upon the single point of denying the impec- 
cability of the crown ; in those of religion 
he, at least, ostensibly professed an attach- 
ment to the established church. 

Of his personal and private honour, we 
can only judge from his connexion with 
Mr Woodfall. Yet this connexion is 
perhaps sufficient; for throughout the whole 
of it he appears in a light truly ingenuous 
and liberal. ' If undesignedly,' says he in 
one of his letters, ' I should send you any- 
thing you may think dangerous, judge for 
yourself, or take any opinion you think pro- 
per. You cannot offend or afflict me, but 
by hazarding your own safety.' ^ To the 
same effect in another letter, ' For my own 
part I can very truly assure you that nothing 
would afflict me more than to have drawn 
you into a personal danger, because it 
admits of no recompense. A little expense 
is riot to be regarded, and I hope these 



Private Letter, No. 43. 



papers have reimbursed you. I never wiy 
send you any thing that / think dangerous; 
but the risk is yours, and you must deter- 
mine for yourself.' " 

Upon another occasion, being sensible 
that he had written with an asperity that 
might alarm his correspondent, he again 
begged him not to print if he apprehended 
any danger ; adding that, for himself he 
should not be offended at his desisting ; and 
merely requesting that if he did not chuse 
to take the risk he would transmit the paper 
as sent to him, to a printer who was well 
known to be less cautious than himself. 
' The inclosed,' says he in one of his notes, 
' is of such importance, so very material, 
that it must be given to the pubUc immedi- 
ately. / will not advise, though I think 
you perfectly safe. All I say is that I rely 
upon your care to have it printed either to- 
morrow in your own paper, or to-night in 
the Pacquet.' 3 — To the same effect is the 
following upon another occasion. ' I hope 
you will approve of announcing the inclosed 
Junius to-morrow, and pubhshing it on 
Monday. If, for any reasons that do not 
occur to me, you should think it unadvise- 
able to print it, as it stands, I must entreat 
the favour of you to transmit it to Bingley, 
and satisfy him that it is a real Junius, 
worth a North Briton extraordinary. It 
will be impossible for me to have an oppor- 
tunity of altering any part of it. ' '^ 

Upon the printer's being menaced with a 
prosecution on the part of the duke of 
Grafton, in consequence of the publication 
of JUNius's letter to him of the date of De- 
cember 12, 1769, accusing this nobleman of 
having, in the most corrupt and sinister 
manner, either sold or connived at the sale 
of a patent place in the collection of the 
customs at Exeter, he writes as follows : 
' As to yourself, I am convinced the ministry 
will not venture to attack you ; they dare 
not submit to such an enquiry. If they do, 
show no fear, but tell them plainly you will 
justify, and subpoena Mr Hine, Burgoyne, 



Id. 



= Private Letter, No. 33. 
' No. 38. 4 Id., No. 34. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



23 



and Bradshaw of the Treasury ; that will 
silence them at once.'^ The printer, how- 
ever, was still fearful, and could not avoid 
expressing himself so to his invisible friend; 
who thus rephed to his proposal of volun- 
teering an apology : 'Judge for yourself. 
I enter sincerely into the anxiety of your 
situation ; at the same time I am strongly 
inclined to think that you will not be called 
upon. They cannot do it without subject- 
ing Hine's affair to an enquiry, which would 
be worse than death to the minister. As it 
is, they are more seriously stabbed with this 
last stroke, than all the rest. At any rate, 
stand firm : (I mean with all the humble 
appearances of contrition:) if you trim or 
faulter, you will lose friends without gaining 
others.' " The friendly advice thus shrewdly 
given was punctiliously followed ; and the 
predictions of Junius were more than ac- 
complished : for the minister not only did 
not dare to enforce his menaces, but at the 
same time thought it expedient to drop ab- 
ri;ptly the prosecution of Mr Vaughan, 
which this attack upon him was expressly 
designed to fight off, and to drop it, too, after 
the rule against Vaughan had been made 
absolute. 

Upon the publication of JuNius's letter 
to the King, Woodfall was not quite so 
fortunate— but his invisible friend still fol- 
lowed him with assistance; he offered him, 
as has already been observed, a reimburse- 
ment of whatever might be his pecuniary 
expenses, and aided him in a still higher 
degree with the soundest prudential and 
legal advice. Upon a subsequent occasion 
also, he makes the following observation. 
' As to yourself, I really think you in no 
danger. You are not the object, and 
punishing you would be no gratification to 
the king.' 3 — But upon this subject, the 
following is one of the most important 
notes, as, although he expressly denies all 
frofessioiial knowledge of the law, it suffi- 
ciently proves that he was better acquainted 
with it than many who are actual prac- 

"^ Private Letter, No. 15. 

= Id., No. 17. 3 Id., No. 43. 

•* At that time Attorney-General. 



titioners. ' I have carefully pemsed the 
Inforinatioii : it is so loose and ill-drawn 
that I am persuaded Mr De Grey "* could 
not have had a hand in it. Their inserting 
the whole, proves they had no strong pas- 
sages to fix on. I still think it will not be 
tried. If it should, it is not possible for a 
jury to find you guilty.' s 

In his first opinion he was mistaken ; in 
his second he was correct. The cause was 
tried at Nisi Prius— but no one has yet for- 
gotten that the verdict returned was ' guilty 
of printing and publishing only ;' which in 
fact implied not guilty at all.^ 

It is to this cause, as has been already 
glanced at, we are chiefly indebted for an 
acknowledged and unequivocal right in the 
jury to return a general verdict — that is, a 
verdict that shall embrace matter of law as 
well as matter of fact. From the ambiguity of 
the verdict however, in the case before us, a 
motion was made by the defendant's coun- 
sel in arrest of judgment; at the same time 
that an opposite motion was advanced by 
the counsel for the crown, for a rule upon 
the defendant to show cause why the ver- 
dict should not be entered up according to 
the legal import of the words. On both 
sides a rule to show cause was granted, 
and the matter being argued before the 
court of King's Bench, notwithstanding 
the bench appears to have been strongly 
and unanimously in favour of the verdict 
being entered up, the result was the grant 
of a new trial ; which, however, was not 
proceeded in, for want of proof of the pub- 
lication of the paper in question. 

That Junius was quick and irritable in 
conceiving disgust, and vehement, and even 
at times mahgnant, in his enmities, we may 
equally ascertain from his private and his 
pubHc communications. In the violence of 
his hatreds almost every one whom he 
attacks is guilty in the extreme ; there are 
no degrees of comparison either in their 
criminality or his own detestation : the 
whole is equally superlative. If the duke 



5 Private Letter, No. 20. 

6 See Editor's notes, p. 118 and p. 213. 



24 



PREIJMINARY ESSAY. 



of Grafton be the object of his address, 
' every villain in the kingdom,' says he, ' is 
your friend ' — the very sunshine you live in 
is a prelude to your dissolution.' = If lord 
Mansfield fall beneath his lash, do not 
scruple to atifirm, with the mosc solemn 
appeal to God for my sincerity, that, in rny 
judgment, he is the very worst and most 
dangerous man in the kingdom.' ^ An 
I opinion corroborated by him in his private 
correspondence : ' We have got the rascal 
down," says he, 'let us strangle him if it 
be possible.''* In like manner addressing 
himself to lord Barrington, 'You are so 
detested and despised by all parties (be- 
cause all parties know you) that England, 
Scotland, and Ireland have but one wish 
concerning you ; ' 5 while his note to the 
printer accompanying this address, closes 
thus : ' The proceedings of this wretch are 
unaccountable. There must be some mys- 
tery in it, which I hope will soon be dis- 
covered to his confusion. Next to the 
duke of Grafton, I verily believe that the 
blackest heart in the kingdom belongs 
to lord Barrington.'*^ Even Scoevola, an 
anonymous writer, whom he knew not, is 
' a blockhead ' and 'a fool ' '' for opposing 
him : Swinney, for his impertinent enquiry 
of lord G. Sackville, ' a wretched but a 
dangerous fool ; ' ^ and Garrick, on the 
same account, ' a rascal, and a vaga- 
bond.' 5 

Yet it is not difficult to account for the 
more violent of his political abhorrences ; 
and which seem, indeed, to have been 
almost exclusively directed against the three 
ministerial characters just enumerated in 
conjunction with the earl of Bute : for his 
attacks upon the duke of Bedford and sir 
William Blackstone are but light and casual 
when compared with his incessant and un- 
mitigated tirades against these noblemen. 

Firmly rooted in the best Whig principles 
of the day, he had an invincible hatred of 
lord Bute as the grand prop and founda- 
tion-stone of Toryism in its worst and most 



^ Letter LXVII. ^ Ibid. 

3 Letter LXIX. 4 Private Letter, No. 24. 

5 Miscellaneous Letters, No. CXI. 



arbitrary tendencies : as introduced into 
Carlton-house against the consent of his pre- 
sent Majesty's royal grandfather, through 
the overweening favouritism of the princess 
dowager of Wales ; as having obtained an 
entire ascendancy over this princess, and 
through this princess over the king, whose 
non-age had been entirely entrusted to him, 
and through the king over the cabinet and 
the parhament itself. The introduction of 
lord Bute into the post of chief preceptor 
to his Majesty was in our author's opinion 
an inexpiable evil, ' Thai,' says he, ' was 
the salient point from which all th ^ mis- 
chiefs and disgraces of the present reign took 
life and motion.' Letter XXXV., note. 
Thus despising the tutor, he could have no 
great reverence for the pupil : and hence the ' 
personal dislike he too frequently betrays, 
and occasionally in language altogether in- 
temperate and unjustifiable, for the sove- 
reign. Hence, too, his unconquerable 
prejudice against Scotchmen of every 
rank. 

The same cause excited his antipathy 
against lord Mansfield, even before his 
Lordship's arbitrary line of conduct had 
proved that our author's suspicions con- 
cerning him were well-founded. Lord 
Mansfield was a Scotchman : but this was 
not the whole. Under the patronage of 
lord Stormont, he had been educated with 
the highest veneration for the whole Stuart 
family, and especially for the Pretender ; 
whose health, when a young man, had been 
his favourite toast, and to whom his bro- 
ther was attached as a confidential and 
private agent. It was for these sentiments, 
and for the politics which intruded them- 
selves m his judicial proceedings, where 
the crown was concerned, that our author 
expressed himself in such bitter terms 
against the chief justice. ' Our language,' 
says he, in Letter XLI., 'has no term 
of reproach, the mind has no idea of 
detestation, which has not already been 
happily applied to you, and exhausted. 



6 Private Letter, No. 61 
^ Id., Nos. 46 and 47. 
5 Id., Nos. 41 and 43. 



Id., No. 5. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



25 



— Ample justice has been done by abler 
pens than mine to the separate merits of 
your life and character. Let it be my 
humble office to collect the scattered 
sweets, till their united virtue tortures the 
sense.' 

His detestation of the duke of Grafton 
proceeded from his Grace's having aban- 
doned his patron lord Chatham, and the 
Whig principles into which he had been 
initiated under him, to gratify his own 
ambition on the first offer that occurred : 
from his having afterwards united some- 
times with the Bedford party, sometimes 
with lord Bute, and sometimes with other 
connexions of whatever principles or pro- 
fessions, whenever the union appeared fa- 
vourable to his personal views ; and from 
his having hereby prevented that general 
coalition of the different divisions of Whig 
statesmen, which must in all probabihty 
have proved permanently triumphant over 
the power of the king himself. ' My abhor- 
renceof the duke,' says Junius, ' arises from 
an intimate knowledge of his character, and 
from a thorough conviction that his base- 
ness has been the cause of greater mischief 
to England than even the unfortunate am- 
bition of lord Bute.' ^ 

It was not necessary for lord Barrington 
to be a Scotchman in order to excite the 
antipathy of Junius. He might justly de- 
spise and even hate him (if it be allowable 
to indulge a private hatred against a public 
character of any kind) for his political ver- 
satilities and want of all principle ; for 
atrocities, indeed, which no man can yet 
have forgotten, and which never can be 
buried in forgetfulness but with the total 
oblivion of his name. Barrington, inde- 
pendently of these general considerations, 
however, was the man who moved for 
Wilkes's expulsion from parliament, in 
which he was seconded by Mr Rigby. 

These were the prime objects of our 
author's abhorrence ; and in proportion as 
other politicians were connected with them 
by principles or want of principles, con- 

^ Letter LIV. 



federacy, nation, or even family, he ab- 
horred them also. 

His reasons for believing that the con- 
stitution allows him to regard the reigning 
prince as occasionally culpable in his own 
person, are given at large in his Preface. 
To few people perhaps in the present day 
will they carry conviction. But, bating 
this single opinion, his view of the prin- 
ciples and powers of the constitution ap- 
pears to be equally correct and perspicuous. 
Upon the question of general warrants ; of 
the right of juries to return general verdicts, 
or in other words, to determine upon the 
law as well as upon the fact ; of the un- 
hmited power of Lords Chief Justices to 
admit to bail ; of the illegality of suspend- 
ing acts of parliament by proclamation, we 
owe him much ; he was a warm and rigid 
supporter of the co-extent, as well as co- 
existence, of the three estates of the govern- 
ment, and it was from this principle alone 
that he argued against the system of inde- 
finite privilege as appertaining to either 
House individually ; and as allowing it a 
power of arbitrary punishment, for what 
may occasionally be regarded as a con- 
tempt of such House, or a breach of such 
privilege. 

Personally and. outrageously inimical, 
however, as he was to the reigning prince, 
and earnestly devoted as he seems to have 
been to the cause of the people, neither his 
enmity nor his patriotism hurried him into 
any of those political extravagancies which 
have peculiarly marked the character of the 
present age : a hmited monarchy, like our 
own, he openly preferred to a repubUc ; he 
contended for the constitutional right of 
impressing, in case of emergency, sea-faring 
men for the common service of the country ; 
strenuously opposed the supporters of the 
Bill of Rights, in their endeavours to restore 
annual parliaments, and their fanciful, but, 
as it appeared to him, unconstitutional 
plan of purifying the legislature by dis- 
franchising a number of boroughs which 
they had chosen to regard as totally cor- 
rupt and rotten ; and anterior to the Ame- 
rican contest was as thoroughly convinced 



26 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



as Mr George Grenville himself of the 
supremacy of the legislature of this country- 
over the American colonies. ^ 

Upon the first point he observes : ' I can 
more readily admire the liberal spirit and 
integrity than the sound judgment of any 
man, who prefers a republican form of go- 
vernment, in this or any other empire of 
eqtial extent, to a monarchy so qualified 
and limited as ours. I am convinced, that 
neither is it in theory the wisest system 
of government, nor practicable in this 
country.'" Upon the second point he 
appears to have been chiefly influ- 
enced by judge Foster's argument on the 
legality of pressing seamen, and his com- 
ment on that argument maybe seen in his ob- 
servations, pp. 307, 318, and 321. Upon the 
third and fourth points he thus ingenuously 
expresses himself : ' Whenever the question 
shall be seriously agitated, I will endeavour 
(and, if I live, will assuredly attempt it) to 
convince the English nation, by arguments 
to my understanding unanswerable, that 
they ought to insist upon a triennial, and 
banish the idea of an aimiial parliament. 
As to cutting away the rotten bo- 
roughs, I am as much offended as any man 
at seeing so many of them under the direct 
influence of the crown, or at the disposal of 
private persons ; yet, I own, I have both 
doubts and apprehensions, in regard to the 
remedy you propose. I shall be charged, 
perhaps, with an unusual want of pohtical 
intrepidity, when I honestly confess to you, 
that I am startled at the idea of so extensive 
an amputation. In the first place, I ques- 
tion the power, de jure, of the legislature 
to disfranchise a number of boroughs, upon 
the general ground of improving the con- 
stitution. — When you propose to cut away 
the rottefi parts, can you tell us what parts 
are perfectly sound f Are there any certain 
limits, in fact or theory, to inform you at 
what point you must stop, — at what point 
the mortification ends?' ^ 

Junius has been repeatedly accused of 
having been a party-man, but perhaps no 

^ See Miscellaneous Letters, No. X., as well 
as various others in the year 1768. 
= Letter LIX. 3 Letter LXIX. 



political satirist was ever less so. To Mr 
Wilkes and Mr Home he was equally in- 
different, except in regard to their pubhc 
principles and pubhc characters. In his 
estimation the cause alone was every thing, 
and they were only of value as the tempor- 
ary and accidental supporters of it. ' Let 
us employ these men, ' says he, ' in whatever 
departments their various abilities are best 
suited to, and as muoh to the advantage of 
the common cause, as their different in- 
clinations will permit. — If individuals have 
no virtues, their vices may be of use to us. 
I care not with what principle the new-born 
patriot is animated, if the measures he sup- 
ports are beneficial to the community. The 
nation is interested in his conduct. His 
motives are his own. The properties of a 
patriot are perishable in the individual, but 
there is a quick succession of subjects, and 
the breed is worth preserving.''* It was in 
this view of the politics of the day, that he 
privately cautioned his friend Woodfall, as 
has been already noticed, 'to be much 
upon his guard against patriots ; ' 5 and in 
the consciousness of possessing a truly in- 
dependent spirit, that he boasted of being 
' disowned, as a dangerous auxihary, by 
every party in the kingdom,' ^ his creed not 
expressly comporting with any single party 
creed whatever. 

Yet there were statesmen whom he be- 
lieved to be truly honest and upright, and 
for whom he felt a personal as well as a 
political reverence : and it is no small proof 
of the keenness of his penetration that the 
characters, whom he thus singled out from 
the common mass of pretenders to genuine 
patriotism, have been ever since growing in 
the public estimation, and are now justly 
looked back to as the pillars and bulwarks 
of the English constitution. His high 
opinion of the generrl purity and virtue of 
lord Camden we have already noticed. 
' Lord Bute," says he, in describing several 
others of whom he equally approved, 
' found no resource of dependence or se- 
curity in the proud, imposing superiority of 

4 Letter LIX. S Private Letter, No. 44. 

6 Letter XLIV. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, in- 
flexible judgment of Mr Grenville,^ nor in 
the mild, but determined integrity of lord 
Rockingham.'^ He also seems disposed to 
have entertained a good opinion of lord 
Holland ; and this is the rather entitled to 
attention, as the opinion was communicated 
confidentially. ' I wish,' says he, ' lord 
Holland may acquit himself with honour : 
if his cause be good, he should at once have 
published that account to which he refers 
in his letter to the mayor." ^ With respect 
to ISlr Sawbridge, and his worthy colleague, 
he observes, ' My memory fails me if I have 
mentioned their names with disrespect ; — 
unless it be reproachful to acknowledge a 
sincere respect for the character of IMr. 
Sawbridge, and not to have questioned the 
innocence of Mr Oliver's intentions.' * And 
again, adverting to the former, it were 
much to be desired, that we had many such 
men as ^Ir Sawbridge to represent us in 
parliament. — I speak from common report 
and opinion only, when I impute to him a 
speculative predilection in favour of a re- 
pubHc. — In the personal conduct and man- 
ners of the man, I cannot be mistaken. He 
has shown himself possessed of that re- 
publican firmness, which the times require, 
and by which an English gentleman may 
be as usefully and as honourably dis- 
tinguished, as any citizen of ancient Rome, 
of Athens, or Lacedsemon.' 5 

Yet the times were too corrupt, and the 
instances of defection too numerous, to 
allow so wary a statesman as Junius to 
regard even these exalted characters with- 
out occasional suspicion and jealousy. 
Much as he approved of the marquis of 
Rockingham personally, he regarded him 
publicly as forming a feeble administration 
that dissolved in its own weakness.^ He 
had more than once some doubts of the 

^ Of all the political characters of the day 3\Ir 
Grenville appears to have been our author's 
favourite ; no man v/-as more open to censure in 
many parts of his conduct, but he is never cen- 
sured ; while, on the contrary, he is extolled 
wherever an opportunity offers: yet Junius 
positive!}' asserted that he had no personal know- 
ledge of Air Grenville. Compare Miscellaneous 



motives both of lord Camden and lord 
Chatham : their opposition at the com- 
mencement of the American contest he was 
jealous of ; and ascribed it rather to politic- 
al pique than to liberal patriotism. 7 To 
his friend he writes thus confidentially, 
' The duke of Grafton has been long labour- 
ing to detach Camden ; ' ^ and in unison 
with this idea he tells his Lordship himself 
publicly, ' If you decline this honourable 
office, I fear it will be said that, for some 
months past, you have kept too much com- 
pany with the duke of Grafton.'^ And even 
as late as August, 1771, when lord Chatham 
had been progressively growing on his good 
opinion, he thus cautiously praises him. 
' // his ambition be upon a level with his 
understanding ; — (f he judges of what is 
truly honourable for himself, with the same 
superior genius, which animates and directs 
him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in 
decision, even the pen of Junius shall con- 
tribute to reward him. Recorded honours 
shall gather round his monument, and 
thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and 
will support the laurels that adorn it. — I 
am not conversant in the language of 
panegyric. — These praises are extorted from 
me ; but they will wear well, for they have 
been dearly earned.' ^'^ 

In his religious opinions Junius has been 
accused of deism and atheism ; but on 
what account it seems impossible to ascer- 
tain : he has by others been conceived to 
have been a dissenter ; ^^ yet with as little 
reason. To judge from the few passages in 
his own writings that have any bearing 
upon the question, and which occur chiefly 
in his letter, under the signature of Philo- 
Junius, of Aug. 26, 1771, Letter LV., heap- 
pears to have been a Christian upon the 
most sincere conviction ; one of whose chief 
objects was to defend the religion established 



Letters, No. XXIX., with Letters, No. XVIII. 
^ Letter XV. 3 Private Letter, No. 5. 

4 Letter LIV. 

5 Letter LIX. « Letter XXIII. 

7 Letter I. 8 Private Letter, No. 47. 

9 Letter LXIX. '° Letter LIV. 

^^ Heron's edition of the Letters of Junius, 
vol. i. p. 69. 



28 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



by law, and who was resolved to renounce 
and give up to public contempt and indig- 
nation every man who should be capable of 
uttering a disrespectful word against it. To 
the religion of the court, it must be con- 
fessed that he was no friend ; and to speak 
the truth it constituted, at the period in 
question, an anomaly not a little difficult of 
solution. To behold a sanctuary self-sur- 
rounded by a moat of pollution ; a prince 
strictly and exemplarily pious, selecting for 
his confidential advisers men of the most 
abandoned debauchery and profligacy of 
life, demanded, in order to penetrate th^ 
mystery, a knowledge never completely ac- 
quired till the present day, which has suf- 
ficiently demonstrated how impossible it is 
for a king of England to exercise at all 
times a real option in the appointment of 
his ministers. The severity with which our 
author uniformly satirized every violation of 
public decorum, at least entitles him to 
public gratitude, and does credit to the 
purity of his heart :^ and if his morality 
may be judged of by various occasional 
observations and advices scattered through- 
out his private intercourse with Mr Wood- 
fall, some instances of which have already 
been selected, it is impossible to do other- 
wise than approve both his principles and 
his conduct. 

Whether the writer of these letters had 
any other and less worthy object in view 
than that he uniformly avowed, namely, a 
desire to subserve the best political interests 
of his country, it is impossible to ascertaia 
with precision. It is unquestionably no 
common occurrence in history, to behold a 
man thus steadily, and almost incessantly, 
for five years, volunteering his services in 
the cause of the people, amidst abuse and 
slander from every party, exposed to uni- 
versal resentment, uiiknown, and not daring 



^ See especially Letters XIII., XIV., and 
XXIII. 

^ The only hints which can be gathered that 
he had any prospect at any time of engaging in 
public life, are in Private Letters, No. 17 and 
No. 65 : but even these are of questionable mean- 



^ Private Letter, No. 18. 



to be known, without having any personal 
object to acquire, any sinister motive of in- 
dividual aggrandizement or reward. Yet 
nothing either in his public or private let- 
ters affords us any tangible proof that he 
was thus actuated.^ Throughout the whole, 
from first to last, in the midst of all his 
warmth and rancour, his argument and de- 
clamation, his appeal to the pubUc, and his 
notes to his confidential friend, he seems to 
have been influenced by the stimulus of 
sound and genuine patriotism alone. With 
this he commenced his career, and with this 
he retired from the field of action, retaining, 
at least a twelvemonth afterwards, the latest 
period in which we are able to catch a 
glimpse of him, the same political sen- 
timents he had professed on his first appear- 
ance before the world, and still ready to re- 
new his efforts the very moment he could 
perceive they had a chance of being attend- 
ed- with benefit. Under these circumstances, 
therefore, however difficult it may be to 
acquit him altogether of personal consider- 
ations, it is still more difficult, and must be 
altogether unjust, ungenerous, and illogical, 
to suspect his integrity. 

It has often been said, from the general 
knowledge he has evinced of English juris- 
prudence, that he must have studied the 
law professionally : and in one of his Pri- 
vate Letters already quoted, he gives his 
personal opinion upon the mode in which 
the information of the King against Wood- 
fall was drawn up, in a manner that may 
serve to countenance such an opinion. Yet 
on other occasions he speaks obviously not 
from his own professional knowledge, but 
from a consultation with legal practitioners : 
' The information, ' says he, ' will only be for 
a misdemeanour, and / arn advised that no 
jury, escebiallyin these times, will find it.' 3 
In like ^ manner, although he affirms in his 



^ He speaks in like manner of legal consultation, 
and the difficulties he laboured under of obtain- 
ing legal advice, from the peculiarity of his situ- 
ation, in Private Letter 70. And in the same 
letter, he makes the following pointed confes- 
sion : ' though I use the terms of art, do not 
injure me so much as to suspect I am a lawyer. 
I had as lief be a Scotchman.' 



PRELIAIINARY ESSAY. 



29 



elaborate letter to lord Mansfield, ' I well 
knew l\\& practice of the court, and by what 
legal rules it ought to be directed ; '^ yet he 
is for ever contemning the intricacies and 
littlenesses of special pleading, and in his 
Preface declares unequivocally, ' I am no 
lawyer by profession, nor do I pretend to be 
more deeply read than every English gen- 
tleman should be in the laws of his country. 
If therefore the principles I maintain are 
truly constitutional, I shall not think myself 
answered, though I should be convicted of 
a mistake in terms, or of misapplying the 
language of the law. ' ^ 

That he was of some rank and conse- 
quence seems generally to have been ad- 
mitted by his opponents, and must indeed 
necessarily follow, as has been already casu- 
ally hinted at, from the facility with which 
he acquired political information, and a 
knowledge of ministerial intrigues. In one 
place he expressly affirms that his 'rank and 
fortune place him above a common bribe ; ' ^ 
in another, ' I should have hoped that even 
my name might carry some authority with 
it.''* On one occasion he intimates an in- 
tention of composing a regular history of 
the duke of Grafton's administration. ' These 
observations,' says he, 'general as they are, 
might easily be extended into a faithful his- 
tory of your Grace's administration, and 
perhaps maybe the employment of a future 
hour ; '5 aiid on another, that of Lord Towns- 
hend's, 'the history of this ridiculous ad- 
ministration shall not be lost to the public.'^ 
And on two occasions, and on two occasions 
only, he appears to hint at some prospect, 
though a slender one, of taking a part in 
the government of the country. They occur 
in his Private Letters to Woodfall and 
Wilkes.: to the former he says, ' if things 



I Letter LXVIII. = Pref.,p. 115. 

3 Miscellaneous Letters, No. LIV. 

4 Letter III. 

5 Letter XI. 6 Page 217, note. 

7 Private Letter, jVo. 17. 8 Id., No. 65. 

5 The following character of his style and 
talents is the production of a pen contempo- 
raneous but hostile to him. It occurs in a letter 
in the Public Advertiser subscribed Alciphron, 
and dated August 22, 1771. The writer had well 
studied him. 



take the turn I expect, you shall know me 
by my works.' ^ To the latter, ' though I do 
not disclaiyn the idea of some personal views 
to future ho7iour and advantage (you would 
not believe me if I dSA), yet I can truly 
affirm, that neither are they little in them- 
selves, nor can they, by any possible conject- 
U7'e, be collected from my zvritings.'^ 

Of those who have critically analyzed the 
style of his compositions, some have pre- 
tended to prove that he must necessarily 
have been of Irish descent or Irish education, 
from the peculiarity of his idioms ; while, to 
show how little dependence is to be placed 
upon any such observations, others have 
equally pretended to prove, from a similar 
investigation, that he could not have been a 
native either of Scotland or Ireland, nor 
have studied in any university of either of 
those countries. The fact is, that there are 
a few phraseologies in his letters peculiar to 
himself ; such as occur in the compositions 
of all original writers of great force and 
genius, but which are neither indicative of 
any particular race, nor referable to any pro- 
vincial dialect. -_ 

The distinguishing features of his style 
are ardour, spirit, perspicuity, classical cor- 
rectness, sententious, epigrammatic com- 
pression : his characteristic ornaments, keen, 
indignant invective, audacious interrogation, 
shrewd, .severe, antithetic retort, proud, 
presumptuous disdain of the powers of his 
adversary, pointed and appropriate allusions 
that can never be mistaken, but are often 
overcharged, and at times perhaps totally 
unfounded, though derived from popular 
rumour, similies introduced, not for the pur- 
pose of decoration, but of illustration and 
energy, brilliant, burning, admirably select- 
ed, and irresistible in their application.^ 



' The admiration that is so lavishh^ bestowed 
upon this writer, affords one of the clearest proofs, 
perhaps, that can be found, how much more 
easily men are swayed by the imagination, than 
by the judgment; and that a fertile invention, 
glittering language, and sounding periods, act 
with far greater force upon the mind, than the 
simple deductions of sober reasoning, or the calm 
evidence of facts. For the talents of Junius 
never appeared in demonstration. 

' Rapid, violent, and impetuous, he affirms 



3° 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



In his similes, however, he is once or twice 
too recondite, and in his grammatical con- 
struction still more frequently incorrect. 
Yet the latter should in most instances 
perhaps, if not the whole, be rather attri- 
buted to the difficulty of revising the press, 
and the peculiar circumstances tmder which 
his work was printed and published, than to 
any inaccuracy or classical misconception 
of his own. As to the surreptitious copies 
of his letters, he frequently complains of 
their numerous errors, 'indeed,' says he, 
' they are innumerable ; ' ^ and though the 
genuine edition labours under very con- 
siderably fewer, and on several occasions 
received his approbation on the score of ac- 
curacy, yet it would be too much to assert 
that it is altogether free from errors. In truth 
this was not to be expected, for it is not 
known that a single proof-sheet (excepting 
those containing the first two letters) was 
ever sent to him. ' You must correct the 
press yourself, ' says he in one of his letters 
to Woodfall ; ' but / should be glad to see 
corrected proofs of the two first sheets.'" 
The Dedication and Preface he certainly 
did not revise. 

Yet if the grammatical construction be 
occasionally imperfect (sometimes hurried 
over by the author, and sometimes mistaken 
by the printer), the general plan and outhne, 
the train of argument, the bold and fiery 
images, the spirited invective that pervade 
the whole, appear to have been alv/ays 
selected with the utmost care and attention. 
Such finished forms of composition bear in 
themselves the most evident marks of ela- 
borate forecast and revisal, and the author 
rather boasted of the pains he had bestowed 



without reason, and decides without proof; as if 
he feared that the slow methods of induction and 
argument would interrupt him in his progress, 
and throw obstacles in the way of his career. But 
though he advances with the largest strides, his ; 
steps are measured. His expressions are selected | 
with the most anxious care, and his periods ter- | 
minated in harmonious cadence. Thus he capti- j 
vates by his confidence, by the turn of his sen- i 
tences, and by the force of liis words. His readers ' 
are persuaded because they are agitated, and j 
convinced because they are pleased. Their as- 
sent, therefore, is never -sVithheld ; though they 



upon them than attempted to conceal his 
labour. In recommending to Woodfall 
to introduce into his purposed edition 
various letters of his own writing under 
other signatures, he adds, ' If you adopt 
this plan, I shall point out those which I 
would recommend ; for you know, I do 
not, nor indeed have I time to, give equal 
care to them all. — As to Junius, I must 
wait for fresh matter, as this is a character 
which must be kept up with credit.' ^ The 
private note accompanying his first letter 
to lord Mansfield commences thus, 'The 
inclosed, though begun within these few 
days, has been greatly laboured. It is very 
correctly copied, and I beg that you will 
take care that it be literally printed as it 
stands.' ■♦ The note accompanying his last 
and most celebrated letter observes as fol- 
lows : ' At last I have concluded my great 
work, and I assure you with no small 
labour.' 5 On sending the additional papers 
for the genuine edition he asserts, ' I have 
no view but to serve you, and consequently 
have only to desire that the Dedication and 
Preface may be correct. Look to it ; — if 
you take it upon yourself, I will not forgive 
your suffering it to be spoiled. / weigh 
every word ; a?id every alteration, in my 
eyes at least, is a blemish.'^ In like manner 
in his letter to Mr Home, he interrogates 
him, 'What public question have I de- 
clined, what villain have I spared ? Is there 
no labour in the composition of these 
letters f "^ In effect no excellence of any 
kind is to be attained without labour : and 
the degree of excellence that characterizes 
the style of these addresses, intrinsically 
demonstrates the exercise of a labour un- 



scarcely know why, or even to what it is yielded.' 

•^ Private Letter, No. 5. 

* Private Letter, No. 40. The truth is that the 
genuine edition was reprinted from Wheble's : 
the author correcting a few. and Woodfall a few 
more of the blunders which had crept into Whe- 
ble's text ; though many of them still remain un- 
touched. The letters in this and the former 
edition have been carefully collated with the 
Pubhc Advertisers, and a numerous list of other 
errors have been consequently expunged. 

3 Private Letter, No. 7. 4 id., No. 24. 

5 Id., No. 40. 6 Id., No. 46. ^ Letter LIV. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



31 



sparing and unremitted. Mr Home, in his 
reply, attempts to ridicule this acknowledg- 
ment : 'I compassionate,' says he, 'your 
labour in the composition of your letters, 
and will communicate to you the secret of 
my fluency. — Truth needs no ornament ; 
and, in my opinion, what she borrows of 
the pencil is deformity.'^ Yet no man ever 
bestowed more pains upon his compositions 
than Mr Home has done : nor needed he 
to have been more ashamed of the confes- 
sion than his adversary. To have made it 
openly would have been honest to himself, 
useful to the young, and salutary to the 
conceited. 

His most elaborate letters are that to the 
King, and that to lord Mansfield upon the 
law of bail : one of his most sarcastic is 
that to the duke of Grafton, of the date of 
May 30, 1769 ; and one of his best and 
most truly valuable, that to the printer of 
the PubHc Advertiser, dated Oct. 5, 1771, 
' upon the best means of uniting the jarring 
sectaries of the popular party into one 
common cause. 

His metaphors are peculiarly brilliant, and 
so numerous, though seldom unnecessarily 
introduced, as to render it difficult to know- 
where to fix in selecting a few examples. 
The following are ably managed, and re- 
quire no explanation. ' The ministry, it 
seems, are labouring to draw a line of dis- 
tinction between the honour of the crown 
and the rights of the people. This new 
idea has yet been only started in discourse, 
for, in effect, both objects have been equally 
sacrificed. I neither understand the dis- 
tinction, nor what use the ministry propose 
to make of it. The king's honour is that 
of his people. Their real honour and real 
interest are the same. — I am not contend- 
ing for a vain punctilio. — Private credit is 
wealth ; public honour is security. — The 
feather that adorns the royal bird, supports 
its flight. Strip him of his plumage and 
you fix him to the earth." ^ Again : ' Above 
all things, let me guard my countrymen 
against the meanness and folly of accepting 



^ Letter LVI. 
3 Letter LIX. 



= Letter XLII. 
-• Letter LXVII. 



of a trifling or moderate compensation for 
extraordinary and essential injuries. Con- 
cessions, such as these, are of Httle moment 
to the sum of things ; unless it be to prove, 
that the worst of men are sensible of the in- 
juries they have done us, and perhaps to 
demonstrate to us the imminent danger of 
our situation. In the shipwreck of the state, 
trifles float and are preserved ; while every 
thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, 
and is lost for ever.' ^ Once more : ' The 
very sun-shine you live in, is a prelude to 
your dissolution. When you are ripe, you 
shall be plucked.' "^ The commencement of 
his letter to lord Camden shall furnish 
another instance : ' I turn with pleasure, 
from that barren waste, in which no salutary 
plant takes root, no verdure qitickens, to a 
character fertile, as I wiUingly believe, in 
every great and good qualification. '^ 

In a few instances his metaphors are 
rather too far-fetched or recondite : ' Yet 
for the benefit of the succeeding age, I 
could wish that your retreat might be de- 
ferred, until your morals sliall be happily 
ripened to that maturity of corruption, at 
which the worst examples cease to be con- 
tagious.'^ The change which is perpetually 
taking place in the matter of infection gives 
it progressively a point of utmost activity ; 
after which period, by the operation of the 
same continued change, it becomes pro-* 
gressively less active, till at length it ceases 
to possess any effect whatever. The paral- 
lel is correctly drawn, but it cannot be 
followed by every one. In the same letter 
we have another example : ' His views and 
situation required a creature void of all 
these properties ; and he was forced to go 
through every division, i-esolution, compo- 
sition, and refinement of political chemistry, 
before he happily arrived at the caput inor- 
tuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and 
insipid in your retired state, but brought 
into action, you become vitriol again.' ^ 
This figure is too scientific, and not quite 
correct : vitriol cannot, properly speaking, 
be said to be, in any instance, a caput 



5 Letter LXIX. 6 Letter XV. 

7 Letter XV. 



32 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



inoriutnn. He seems, however, to have 
been unjustly charged with an incongruity 
of metaphor in his repartee upon the fol- 
lowing observation of sir W. Draper. ' You, 
indeed, are a tyrant of another sort, and 
upon your political bed of torture can ex- 
cruciate any subject, from a first minister 
down to such a grub or butterfly as ray- 
self.' ^ To this remark his reply was as 
follows : ' If sir W. Draper's bed be a bed 
of torture, he has made it for himself. I 
shall never interrupt his repose.' ^ We need 
not ramble so far as to vindicate the present 
use of this last word by referring to its Latin 
origin : he himself has justly noticed under 
the signature of Philo-Junius, that those 
who pretend to espy any absurdity either 
in the idea or expression, ' cannot dis- 
tinguish between a sarcasm and a contra- 
diction.' 3 

To pursue this critique further would be 
to disparage the judgment of the reader. 
Upon the whole these letters, whether con- 
sidered as classical and correct composi- 
tions, or as addresses of popular and im- 
pressive eloquence, are well entitled to the 
distinction they have acquired ; and quoted 
as they have been, with admiration, in the 
senate by such nice judges and accomplish- 
ed scholars as Mr Burke and lord Eld on, 
eulogized by Dr Johnson, and admitted by 
the author of the Pursuits of Literature to 
the same rank among Enghsh classics as 
Livy or Tacitus among Roman, there can 
be no doubt that they will live commen- 
surately with the language in which they 
are composed. 

These few desultory and imperfect hints 
are the whole that the writer of this essay 
has been able to collect concerning the 
author of the Letters of Junius. Yet de- 
sultory and imperfect as they are, he still 
hopes that they may not be utterly destitute 
both of interest and utility. Although they 
do not undertake positively to ascertain who 
the author was ; they offer a fair test to 
point out negatively who he was not ; and 
to enable us to reject the pretensions of a 

^ Letter XXVI. = Letter XXVII. 

5 Letter XXIX. 



host of persons, whose friends have claimed 
for them so distinguished an honour. 

From the observations contained in this 
essay it should seem to follow unquestion- 
ably that the author of the Letters of 
Junius was an Englishman of highly culti- 
vated education, deeply versed in the 
language, the laws, the constitution, and 
history of his native country : that he was 
a man of easy if not of affluent circum- 
stances, of unsullied honour and generosity, 
who had it equally in his heart and in his 
power to contribute to the necessities of 
other persons, and especially of those who 
were exposed to troubles of any kind on 
his own account : that he was in habits of 
confidential intercourse, if not with different 
members of the cabinet, with politicians 
who were most intimately familiar with the 
court, and entrusted with all its secrets: that 
he had attained an age which would allow 
him, without vanity, to boast of an ample 
knowledge and experience of the world : 
that during the years 1767, 1768, 1769, 
1770, 1771, and part of 1772, he resided 
almost constantly in London or its vicinity, 
devoting a very large portion of his time to 
poHtical concerns, and publishing his poli- 
tical lucubrations, under different signa- 
tures, in the Public Advertiser : that in his 
natural temper he was quick, irritable, and 
impetuous ; subject to political prejudices 
and strong personal animosities ; but pos- 
sessed of a high independent spirit ; honestly 
attached to the principles of the constitu- 
tion, and fearless and indefatigable in 
maintaining them ; that he was strict in his 
moral conduct, and in his attendon to pub- 
lic decorum ; an avowed member of the 
established church, and, though acquainted 
with English judicature, not a lawyer by 
profession. 

What other characteristics he may have 
possessed we know not ; but these are suffi- 
cient ; and the claimant who cannot pro- 
duce them conjointly is in vain brought for- 
ward as the author of the Letters of Junius. 

The persons to whom, this honour has at 
different times, and on different grounds, 
been attributed are the following : Charles 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



33 



Lloyd, a clerk of the Treasury, and after- 
wards a deputy teller of the Exchequer ; 
John Roberts, also a clerk in the Treasury 
at the commencement of his political life, 
but afterwards private secretary to Mr 
Pelham when successively chancellor of the 
exchequer, member of parliament for Har- 
wich, and commissioner of the board of 
trade ; ' Samuel Dyer, a man of consider- 
able learning, and a fiiend of Mr Burke 
and of Dr Johnson ; WiUiam Gerard Ham- 
ilton, another friend and patron of Air 
Burke ; Edmund Burke himself ; Dr But- 
ler, late bishop of Hereford ; the Rev. 
Philip Rosenhagen; major-general Charles 
Lee, well known for his activity during the 
American war ; John Wilkes ; Hugh Ma- 
cauley Boyd ; John Dunning, lord Ash- 
burton ; Henry Flood ; and lord George 
Sackville. 

Of the first three of these reported 
authors of the Leifeters of Junius, it will be 
sufficient to observe, without entering into 
any other fact whatever, that Lloyd was on 
his death-bed at the date of the last of 
JUNius's private letters ; an essay, which 
has sufficient proof of having been written 
in the possession of full health and spirits ; 
and which, together with the rest of our 
author's private letters to the Printer of the 
Public Advertiser, is in the possession of 
the proprietor of this edition, and bears 
date January 19th, 1773. While as to 
Roberts and Dyer, they had both been 
dead for rhany months anterior to this 
period : Lloyd died, after a lingering ill- 
ness, January 22nd, 1773 ; Roberts, July 
13th, and Dyer on September 15th, both 
in the preceding year. 

Of the two next reputed authors, 
Hamilton had neither energy nor personal 



^ Anonymously accused of having written 
these letters in the Public Advertiser, Slarch 21, 
1772, et passim. 

^ Hamilton, from his having 07ice made a bril- 
liant speech in the l^ower House of Great Britain, 
and ever afterwards remaining silent, was called 
Single-speech Hamilton. In allusion to this fact, 
and that he was the real Junius, there is a letter 
in the Public Advertiser of November 30, 1771, 
addressed to William Junius Single-speech, 
Esq. The air of Dublin however should seem. 



courage enough for such an undertaking,^ 
and Burke could not have written in the 
style of Junius, which was precisely the 
reverse of his own, nor could he have con- 
sented to disparage his own talents in the 
manner in which Junius has disparaged 
them in his letter to the Printer of the Pub- 
he Advertiser, dated October 5, 1771 ; in- 
dependently of which, both of them solemnly 
denied that they were the authors of these 
letters, Hamilton to Mr Courtney in his last 
illness, as that gentleman has personally 
informed the editor; and Burke expressly 
and satisfactorily to sir William Draper, 
who purposely interrogated him upon the 
subject ; the truth of which denial is, more- 
over, corroborated by the testimony of the 
late Mr Woodfall, who repeatedly declared 
that neither of them was the writer of these 
compositions. Why Burke was so early 
and generally suspected of having written 
them it is not easy to say ; but that he was 
so suspected is obvious not only from the 
opinion at first entertained by sir WiUiara 
Draper, but from various public accusations 
conveyed in different newspapers and 
pamphlets of the day ; the Public Adver- 
tiser in the month of October containing 
one letter under the signature of Zcno, ad- 
dressed 'to Junius, alias Edmund, the 
Jesuit of St Omers ; ' ^ another under the 
signature of Pliny Junior, a third under 
that of Querist, a fourth under that of 
Oxoniensis, and a fifth under that of 
Scasvola, together with many others to the 
same effect : and, as has already been 
hinted at, an anonymous collector of many 
of the letters of Junius, prefixing to his 
own edition certain anecdotes of Mr Burke, 
which he confidently denominated ' Anec- 
dotes of Junius,' thus purposely, but fal- 



according to Mr Malone's account of him, to have 
been more favourable to his rhetorical powers 
than that of Westminster : for this writer tells 
us that Mr Plamilton made not less than five 
speeches in the Irish Parliament in the single 
Session of 1761—2. Parliamentary Logic, 
Pre/, p. xxii. Lord Orford, indeed, contrary 
to general rumour, intimates that he was twice a 
speaker in the British Parliament. Parliame7it- 
ary Logic. 
3 See Note to Letter LXI., p. 312. 
3 



34 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



laciously, identifying the two characters/ 
If however there should be readers so 
inflexible as still to believe that Mr Burke 
was the real writer of the Letters of Junius, 
and that his denial of the fact to sir William 
Draper was only wrung from him under 
the influence of fear, it will be sufficient to 
satisfy even such readers by showing that 
the system of politics of the one was in 
direct opposition to that of the other upon 
a variety of the most important points. 
Burke was a decided partisan of lord Rock- 
ingham, and continued so during the whole 
of that nobleman's hfe : Junius, on the 
contrary, was as decided a friend to Mr 
George Grenville. Each was an antagonist 
to the other upon the great subject of the 
American Stamp Act. Junius was a warm 
and powerful advocate for triennial parlia- 
ments ; Burke an inveterate enemy to them. 
To which the editor may be allowed to add, 
that while Mr Burke in correcting his 
manuscripts for the press, and revising 
them in their passage through it, is notori- 
ous for the numerous alterations he was 

■^ In addition to the above proofs that Burke 
and Junius were not the same person, the editor 
might refer to the prosecution which Mr Burke 
instituted against Mr Woodfall, the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, and conducted with the ut- 
most acrimony for a paper deemed libellous that 
appeared in this journal in the course of 1783. 
Considerable interest was made with Mr Burke 
to induce him to drop this prosecution in different 
stages of its progress, but he was inexorable. 
The cause was tried at Guildhall, July 15, 1784, 
and a verdict of a hundred pounds damages 
was obtained against the printer; the whole of 
which was paid to the prosecutor. It is morally 
impossible that Junius could have acted in this 
manner : every anecdote in the preceding sketch 
of his public life forbids the belief that he could. 

Neither is it to be conceived, without greatly 
disparag;ing Mr Burke's memory, that he could 
have written the letter to Garrick which Junius 
wrote (see No. 41) ; nor have spoken in the 
terms in which Junius has spoken of Chamier, 
while he professed for both a warm and unre- 
served friendship. We may also further remark 
that the well-known pamphlet, entitled ' The 
Present State of the Nation,' published in 1769 
by Mr George Grenville, was immediately an- 
swered by Mr Burke in a tract entitled ' Observa- 
tions on a late publication, entituled. The Pre- 
sent State of the Nation,' — in which the political 
opinions of Mr Grenville, and consequently of 
Junius, who, as we have already observed, was 
the general advocate of Mr Geo. Grenville, are 



perpetually making, the revised copy with 
which the late Mr Woodfall was furnished 
by Junius for such part of the genuine 
edition of his Letters, as he re-examined, 
contained very few amendments of any kind. 

The following extracts from Mr Burke's 
celebrated speech on American taxation, 
delivered April 19, 1774, will put the reader 
into possession of that gentleman's argu- 
ments upon each of the above public ques- 
tions, and, compared with the short sub- 
joined extracts from Junius, will justify the 
contrast which the editor has thus ventured 
to offer. It will also present the reader 
with a brilliant specimen of the eloquence 
of both characters. 

Mr Burke observes, in the course of this 
celebrated speech,^ that ' In the year 1765, 
being in a very private station, far enough 
from any line of business, and not having 
the honour of a seat in this House, it was 
my fortune, unknowing and unknown to 
the then ministry, by the intervention of a 
common friend, to become connected with 
a very noble person, and at the head of the 



censured with a vehemence peculiar to Mr Burke, 
and altogether sufficient, were there no other 
proof, to demonstrate that Burke and Junius 
could not be the same person. The reader may 
take the following extracts as specimens : — ' This 
piece is called, The present State of the Natio7i. 
It viay be considered as a so7't of digest of the 
avowed maxims of a certai7t political school, the 
effects of whose doctrines and practices this 
coic7itry will feel long a7td severely i' * * * *■ 
'A diversity ofopi>iio>i 7ipo)i ahnost every pri7i- 
ciple of politics had indeed drawn a stro7ig line 
of separatio7L betwee7i them and soi7ie others. 
[The marquess of Rockingham.] * *- * * 
' The purpose of this pamphlet, and at which it 
aims directly or obliquely in every page, is to 
persuade the public of three or four of the most 
difficult points in the world — that all the advan- 
tages of the late war were on the part of the 
Bourbon alliance ; that the peace of Paris per- 
fectl\' consulted the dignity and interest of this 
country ; and that tlu: A mericn7t Stamp Act %vas 
a 77iastcr-piece of policy a7id Jina7ice ; that the 
only good minister this nation has enjoyed since 
his Majesty's accession, is the earl of Bute ; and 
the only 'good managers of revenue we have seen 
are lord Despenser lUid Mr George G7'e7iville ; 
and U7ider the descriptio7i of tne7t of virtue and 
ability, he holds the77i out to us as the 07ily per- 
S071S fit to put our affairs in order.'' — Burke's 
Works, vol. ii. 8vo edit., pages 11, 12, and 15. 

^ See Svo edit, of his Works, vol. ii. p. 389, et 
seq. 



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PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



35 



Treasury department [lord Rockingham]. 
It was indeed in a situation of little rank 
and no consequence, suitable to the medi- 
ocrity of my talents and pretensions. But 
a situation near enough to enable me to see, 
as well as others, what was going on ; and 
I did see in that noble person such sound 
principles, such an enlargement of mind, 
such clear and sagacious sense, and such 
unshaken fortitude, as have bound me, as 
well as others much better than me, by an 
inviolable attachment to him from that time 
forward.' ^ 

' I think the enquiry lasted in the com- 
mittee for six weeks ; and at its conclusion 
fhis House, by an independent, noble, spirit- 
ed, and unexpected majority ; by a majority 
that will redeem all the acts ever done by 
majorities in parliament ; in the teeth of all 
the old mercenary Swiss of state, in despite 
of all the speculators and augurs of political 
events, in defiance of the whole embattled 
legion of veteran pensioners and practised 
instruments of a court, gave a total repeal 
to the Stamp Act, and (if it had been so per- 
mitted) a lasting peace to this whole em- 
pire.' - 

' I Avill likewise do justice, I ought to do 
it, to the honourable gentleman who led us 
in this House [general Conway]. Far from 
the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he 
acted his part -with alacrity and resolution. 
We all felt inspired by the example he gave 
us, down even to myself, the weakest in 
that phalanx. I declare for one, I knew 
well enough (it could not be concealed 
from anybody) the true state of things ; 
but, in my life, I never came with so much 
spirits into this House. It was a time for a 
man to act in. We had powerful enemies ; 
but we had faithful and determined friends ; 
and a glorious cause. We had a great 
battle to fight ; but we had tlie means of 
fighting ; not as now, when our arms are 
tied behind us. We did fight that day and 
conquer.' ^ 

' I remember, Sir, rrith a melancholy 
pleasure, the situation of the hon. gentle- 



^ Burke's Works, vol. ii. p. 399. 
Id., p. 403. 3 Id., p. 407. 



man [general Conway] who m.ade the mo- 
tion for the repeal ; in that crisis, when the 
whole trading interest of this empire, cram- 
med into your lobbies, with a trembling and 
anxious expectation, waited alm.ost to a 
winter's return of light, their fate from your 
resolutions. When, at length, you had de- 
termined in their favour, and your doors 
thrown open, showed them the figure of 
their deliverer in the well-earned triumph 
of his important victor3^ from the whole of 
that grave multitude there arose an in- 
voluntary burst of gratitude and transport. 
They jumped upon him like children on a 
long absent father. They clung about him 
as captives about their redeemer. AU 
England, all America, joined in his ap- 
plause. Nor did he seem insensible to the 
best of all earthly rewards, the love and 
admiration of his fellow-citizens. "Hope 
elevated and joy brightened his crest." I 
stood near him ; and his face, to use the 
expression of the Scripture of the first mar- 
tyr, "his face was as if it had been the face 
of an angel." I do not know how others 
feel ; but" if I had stood in that situation, I 
never would have exchanged it for all that 
kings in their profusion could bestow. I 
did hope, that that day's danger and hon- 
our would have been a bond to hold us all 
together for e%-er. But, alas ! that, with 
other pleasing visions, is long since vanished. 

'Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has 
been represented, as if it had been a measure 
of an administration, that, having no scheme 
of their own, took a middle line, pilfered a 
bit from one side and a bit from the other. 
Sir, they took no middle lines. They dif- 
fered fiindameHtally from the schemes of 
both parties ; but they pre=;erved the objects 
of both. They preserved the authority of 
Great Britain. They presen'ed the equity 
of Great Britain. They made the Declar- 
atory Act ; they repealed the Stamp Act. 
They did both fully ; because the Declar- 
atory Act was zuitho7if qualification, and 
the repeal of the Stamp Act total." ^ 

' Sir, the agents and distributors of false- 

•♦ Burke's Works, vol. ii. p. 409. 



36 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



hoods have, with their usual industry, cir- 
culated another lie of the same nature with 
the former. It is this, that the disturbances 
arose from the account which had been re- 
ceived in America of the change in the 
ministry. No longer awed, it seems, with 
the spirit of the former rulers, they thought 
themselves a match for what our calnm- 
iiiators chuse to qualify by the Jiavie of so 
feeble a ini?iistry as succeeded: Feeble in 
one sense these men certainly may be 
called ; for with all their efforts, and they 
have made many, they have not been able 
to resist the distempered vigour and insane 
alacrity with which you are rushing to your 
ruin.' ^ 

' On this business of America I confess I 
am serious, even to sadness. I have had 
but one opinion concerning it since I sat, 
and before I sat in padiament. * * * 
■* * I honestly and solemnly declare, I 
have in all seasons adhered to the system 
of 1766, for no other reason than that I 
think it laid deep in your truest interests, 
and that by limiting the exercise, it fixes on 
the firmest foundations a real, consistent, 
well-grounded authority in parliament. 
Until you come back to that system, there 
will be no peace for England.' ^ 

' No man can believe, that at this time 
of day I mean to lean on tlie venerable 
memory of a great man whose loss we 
deplore in common. Our little party differ- 
ences have been long ago composed ; and 
I have acted more with him, and certainly 
with more pleasure with him, than ever I 
acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr 
GrenviUe was a first-rate figure in this 
country. With a masculine understanding, 
and a stout and resolute heart, he had an 
application undissipated and unwearied. 
He took public business not as a duty which 
he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to 
enjoy ; and he seemed to have no delight 
out of this House, except in such things as 
some way related to the business that was 
to be done within it. If he was ambitious, 
I will say this for him, his ambition was of 




a noble and generous strain. It was to 
raise himself not by the low pimping politics 
of a court, but to win his way to power 
through the laborious gradations of public 
service ; and to secure himself a well-earned 
rank in parliament, by a thorough know- 
ledge of its constitution, and a perfect 
practice in all its business. * * * * 
He was bred in a profession . He was bred 
to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of 
the first and noblest of human sciences ; a 
science which does more to quicken and 
invigorate the understanding, than all the 
other kinds of learning put together ; but 
it is not apt, except in persons very happily 
born, to open and to hberalize the mind 
exactly in the same proportion.' ^ 

Let the reader compare the opinions 
contained in the above extracts with the 
following, taken almost at hazard, from 
different productions of Junius, and he 
will have no difficulty in determining that 
the writer of the one set could not be the 
writer of the other. 

' To prove the meaning and intent of the 
legislature, will require a minute and tedious 
deduction. To investigate a question of 
law demands some labour and attention, 
though very little genius or sagacity. As a 
practical profession, the study of the law 
requires but a moderate portion of abilities. 
The learning of a pleader is usually upon a 
level with his integrity. The indiscriminate 
defence of right and wrong contracts the 
understanding, while it corrupts the heart. 
Subtlety is soon mistaken for wisdom, and 
impunity for virtue. If there be any in- 
stances upon record, as some there are un- 
doubtedly, of genius and morality united 
in a lawyer, they are distinguished by their 
singularity, and operate as exceptions.'-^ 

' Whenever the question shall be seriously 
agitated, I will endeavour (and if I five, 
will assuredly attempt it,) to convince the 
English nation, by arguments to 7ny under- 
standing unanswerable, that they ought to 
insist upon a triennial, and banish the idea 
of an annual parliament. ***** 

3 Burke's Works, vol. ii. p. 389. 
4 Letter LXVIII. 



PRELOIINARY ESSAY. 



37 



I am convinced that, if shortening the dur- 
ation of parhaments (which in effect is 
keeping the representative under the rod of 
the constituent) be not made the basis of 
our new parliamentary jurisprudence, other 
checks or improvemenis signify nothing.' ^ 

'When the Septennial Act passed, the 
legislature did what, apparently and pal- 
pably, they had no power to do ; but they 
did more than people in general were aware 
of ; they, in effect, disfranchised the whole 
kingdom for four years.' - 

' It would be to no purpose at present to 
renew a discussion of the merits of die Stamp 
Act, though I am convinced that even the 
people who were most clamorous against it, 
either never understood, or wilfully misre- 
presented every part of it. But it is truly 
astonishing that a great number of people 
should have so little foreseen the inevitable 
consequence of repeaUng it. * * * * 
***** There was indeed one man 
[G. Grenville] who wisely foresaw every cir- 
cumstance which has since happened, and 
who, with a patriot's spirit, opposed him- 
self to the torrent. He told us, that, if we 
thought the loss of outstanding debts, and 
of our American trade, a mischief of the 
first magnitude, such an injudicious com- 
pliance with the terms dictated by the 
colonies, was the way to make it sure and 
unavoidable. It was ne ?noriare, mori. 
We see the prophecy verified in every par- 
ticular, and if this great and good man was 
mistaken in any one instance, it was, 
perhaps, that he did not expect his predic- 
tions to be fulfilled so soon as they have 
been.' ^ 

' It is not many months since you gave 
me an opportunity of demonstrating to the 
nation, as far as rational inference and pro- 
bability could extend, that the hopes which 
some men seemed to entertain, or to profess 
at least, with regard to America, were with- 
out a shadow of foundation. * * * * 
* * * But whatever were their views 
or expectations, whether it was the mere en- 
mity of party, or the real persuasion that 



' Letter LXIX. = Ibid. 

3 Miscellaneous Letters, No. X. 



they had but a little time to live in office, 
every circumstance that I then foretold is 
confirmed by experience. ***** 

* * We find ourselves at last reduced to 
the dreadful alternative of either making 
war upon our colonies, or of suffering them 
to erect themselves into independent states. 
It is not that I hesitate now upon the choice 
we are to make. Every thing must be 
hazarded. But what infamy, what punish- 
ment do those men deserve, whose folly or 
whose treachery hath reduced us to this 
state, in which we cannot give up the cause 
without a certainty of ruin, nor maintain it 
without such a struggle as must shake the 
empire. ******* Mr Con- 
way since last December has, in the face of 
the House of Commons, defended the re- 
sistance of the colonies upon what he called 
revolution principles. ******* 
If we luok for their motives, we shall find 
them such as weak and interested men 
usually act upon. They were wealv enough 
to hope that the crisis of Great Britain and 
America would be reserved for their suc- 
cessors in office, and they were determined 
to hazard even the ruin of their country, 
rather than furnish the man [G. Grenville] 
whom they feared and hated, with the me- 
lancholy triumph of having truly foretold 
the consequences of their own misconduct. 
But this, such as it is, the triumph of a 
heart that bleeds at every vein, they cannot 
deprive him of. They dreaded the acknow- 
ledgment of his superiority over them, and 
the loss of their own authority and credit, 
more than the rebellion of near half the em- 
pire against the supreme legislature. * * 

* * * * * It is impossible to conceal 
from ourselves, that we are at this moment 
on the brink of a dreadful precipice ; the 
question is whether we shall submit to be 
guided by the hand which hath driven us to 
it, or whether we shall follow the patriot 
voice [G. Grenville' s] which has not ceased 
to warn us of our dangers, and which 
would still declare the way to safety and to 
honour.' ^ 

4 Miscellaneous Letters, No. XXIX. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



' Whether it be matter of honour or re- 
proach, it is at least a singular circumstance, 
that whoever is hardy enough to maintain 
the cause of Great Britain against subjects 
who disown her authority, or to raise his 
voice in defence of the laws and constitu- 
tion, is immediately pointed out to the pub- 
lic for Mr Grenville's friend. * * * * 

* * * * It is true he professes doc- 
trines which would be treason in America, 
but in England at least he has the laws on 
his side, and if it be a crime to support the 
supremacy of the British legislature, the 
Sovereign, the Lords and Commons, are as 
guilty as he is. * * * * m *- If 
the pretensions of the colonies had not been 
abetted by something worse than a faction 
here, the Stamp Act would have executed 
itself. Every clause of it was so full and 
explicit that it wanted no further instruction ; 
nor was it of that natme that required a 
military hand to carry it into execution. 
For the truth of this I am ready to appeal 
even to the colonies themselves. * * * 

* * 4if * « * Your correspondent 
[who had answered Miscell. Lett. XXIX.] 
confesses that Mr Grenville is still respect- 
able ; yet he warns the friends of that gen- 
tleman not to provoke him, lest he should 
tell them what they may not like to hear. 
These are but words. He means as little 
when he threatens as when he condescends 
to applaud. Let us meet upon the fair 
ground of truth, and if he finds one vulner- 
able part in Mr Grenville's character, let 
him fix his poisoVied arrow there.' ^ 

' If there be any thing improper in this 
address [a letter addressed to G. Grenville], 
the singularity of your present situation will, 
I hope, excuse it. Your conduct attracts the 
attention, because it is highly interesting 
to the welfare of the public, and a private 
man who only expresses what thousands 
think, cannot well be accused of flattery or 
detraction. *-***««* This 
letter, I doubt not, will be attributed to some 
party friend, by men who expect no applause 

^ Miscellaneous Letters, No. XXXI. 

= Id., No. LIII. 3 p. XXX. et seq. 

4 ' It has been said that he at the same time 



but from their dependents. But you, Sir, 
have the testimony of your enemies in your 
favour. After years of opposition, we see 
them revert to those very measures with 
violence, with hazard and disgrace, which 
in the first instance might have been con- 
ducted with ease, with dignity and moder- 
ation. 

' While parliament preserves its constitu- 
tional authority, you will preserve yours. 
As long as there is a reai representation of 
the people, you will be heard in that great 
assembly with attention, deference, and 
respect ; and if, fatally for England, the 
designs of the present ministry should at 
last succeed, you will have the consolation 
to reflect that your voice was heard, until 
the voice of truth and reason was drowned 
in the din of arms ; and that your influence 
in parliament was irresistible, until every 
question was decided by the sword.' ^ 

How far the same principles were sup- 
ported by the same writer under the sig- 
nature of Junius, the reader will find in 
Letters I. and LIX., and it is not necessary 
to copy farther. 

Mr Malone, in his preface to a well-known 
work of Mr Hamilton, entitled Parhament- 
ary Logic, ^ offers a variety of remarks in 
disproof that this gentleman was the writer 
of the letters, several of which are possessed 
of sufficient force, though few persons will 
perhaps agree with him in believing that if 
Hamilton had written them, he would have 
written them better. The following are his 
chief arguments : 

' Now (not to insist on his own solemn 
asseveration near the time of his death, that 
he was not the author of Junius) "^ Mr Ham- 
ilton was so far from being an ardent party 
man, that during the long period above men- 
tioned [from Jan. 1769 to Jan. 1772] he 
never closely connected himself with any 
party. * * * * Notwithstanding his 
extreme love of political discussion,he never, 
it is believed, was heard to speak of any 
administration or any opposition with ve- 

declared that he knew who was the author ; but 
unquestionably he never made any such declara- 
tion.' Malone. 
I 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



39 



hemence either of censure or of praise ; a 
character so opposite to the fervent and 
sometimes coarse acrimony of Junius, that 
this consideration alone is sufficient to 
settle the point, as far as relates to our 
author, for ever. * * * * On the question 
— who was the author ? — he was as free to 
talk as any other person, and often did ex- 
press hisopinion concerning it to the writer of 
this short memoir ; an opinion nearly coin- 
ciding with that of those persons who appear 
to have had the best means of information 
on the subject. In a conversation on this 
much agitated point, he once said to an in- 
timate friend, in a tone between seriousness 
and pleasantry, — " You know, H * * * 
* * * * n, I could have written better 
papers than those of Junius : " and so the 
gentleman whom he addressed, who was 
himself distinguished for his rhetorical 
powers, and a very competent judge, as well 
as many other persons, thought. 

' It may be added, that his style of 
composition was entirely different from that 
of this writer. * * * -* That he had 
none of that minute com7nissarial know- 
ledge of petty military matters, which is 
displayed in some of the earlier papers of 
Junius. 

'And finally it maybe observed, that the 
figures and allusions of Junius are often of 
so different a race from those which our 
author [Hamilton] would have used, that 
he never spoke of some of them without the 
strongest disapprobation ; and particularly 
when a friend, for the purpose of drawing 
him out, affected to think him the writer of 
these papers ; and bantering him on the 
subject, taxed him with that passage in 
which a nobleman, then in a high office, is 
said to have ' ' travelled through every sign 
in the pohtical zodiac, from the SCORPION, 
in which he stu7ig lord Chatham, to the 
hopes of a virgin," &c., as if this imagery 
were much in his style, — Mr Hamilton 
with great vehemence exclaimed, "had I 
written such a sentence as that, I should 
have thought I had forfeited all pretensions 
to good taste in composition for ever ! " ' 

Mr Malone further observes, that Ham- 



ilton filled the office of chancellor of the 
exchequerin Ireland, from September, 1763, 
to April, 1784, during the very period in 
which all the letters of Junius appeared 
before the public ; and it will not very 
readily be credited by any one that this is 
likely to have been the exact quarter from 
which the writer of the letters in question 
fulminated his severe criminations against 
government. The subject moreover of par- 
liamentary reform, for which Junius was so 
zealous an advocate, Mr Malone expressly 
tells us was considered by Hamilton to be 
' of so dangerous a tendency, that he once 
said to a friend now living, that he Vv'ould 
sooner suffer his right hand to be cut off, 
than vote for it.' 

The only reason indeed that appears for 
these letters having ever been attributed to 
Hamilton is, that on a certain morning he 
told the duke of Richmond, as has been 
already hinted at, ^ the substance of a letter 
of Junius which he pretended to have just 
read in the Pubhc Advertiser ; but which, 
on consulting the PubUc Advertiser, was 
not found to appear there, an apology in- 
stead of it being offered for its postpone- 
ment till the next day, when the letter thus 
previously adverted to by Hamilton did 
actually make its appearance. That Hamil- 
ton, therefore, had a knowledge of the 
existence and purport of this letter is un- 
questionable ; but without conceiving him 
the author of it, it is easy to account for the 
fact, by supposing him (as we have supposed 
already) to have had it read to him by his 
friend Woodfall, antecedently to its being 
printed. 

Another character that has been started 
as a claimant to the letters of Junius, is the 
late Dr Butler, bishop of Hereford, for- 
inerly secretary to the right hon. Bilson 
Legge, chancellor of the exchequer, and 
father to the present lord Stawell. Dr 
Butler was a man of some talents, and was 
occasionally a political writer, and felt no 
small disgust and mortification upon his 
patron's dismissal from office. But he 

^ See ante, p. 4, note. 



40 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



never discovered those talents that could in 
any respect put him upon an equality with 
Junius. He was moreover a man of mild 
disposition, and in no respect celebrated 
for political courage. To which general 
remarks, in contravention of this gentle- 
man's claim, the editor begs leave to sub- 
join the following extract of a letter upon 
the subject, addressed by a friend of Dr 
Butler's, and who himself took an active 
part in the politics of the times, to a high 
official character of the present day, and 
which he has been allowed the liberty of 
copying :- — 

' Mr Wilkes showed me the letters he 
received privately from Junius : parts of 
one of these were printed in the public 
papers at the request of the Bill of Rights. 
The autograph was remarkable — it was 
firm and precise, and did not appear to me 
at all disguised. Mr Wilkes had been in- 
timate with bishop Butler when quartered 
as colonel of the militia at Winchester ; 
and from some very curious concurrent 
circumstances, he had strong reasons for 
considering that the bishop was the author, 
and I had some reasons for conjecturing 
the same. Yet I must confess, that if these 
suspicions were stronger and n)ore con- 
firmed, yet I think I should require more 
substantial proofs ; and my reasons are, 
that from all I was ever able to learn of the 
bishop's personal character, he was inca- 
pable of discovering, or feeling, those ran- 
corous sentiments, so unbecoming his cha- 
racter as a Christian, and his station as a 
prelate, expressed towards the duke of 
Grafton, lord North, sir William Draper, 
and others — more especially the king. Nor 
do I think that his being the sole depositary 
of his own secret, which, as Junius says, 
would be, and I fancy was, buried in 
everlasting obhvion when he was entombed, 
would have encouraged him to have used 
such opprobrious language.' 

The pretensions of the Rev. Philip Ros- 
enhagen, though adverted to in a preceding 
edition of these letters, are hardly worth 
noticing. He was at one time chaplain 
to the 8th regiment of foot ; and is said to 



have endeavoured to impose upon lord 
North with a story of his having been the 
author of the letters in order to induce his 
Lordship to settle a pension upon him. It 
is sufficient to observe, that Mr Rosenha- 
gen, who was a school-fellow of Mr H. S. 
Woodfall, continued on terms of acquaint- 
ance with him in subsequent life ; and 
occasionally wrote for the Public Adver- 
tiser ; but was repeatedly declared by Mr 
Woodfall, who must have been a compe- 
tent evidence as to the fact, not to be the 
author of JUNius's Letters. A private let- 
ter of Rosenhagen's to Mr Woodfall is 
still in the possession of his son, and nothing 
can be more different from each other than 
this autograph and that of Junius. 

It has been said in an American periodi- 
cal work entitled 'The Wilmington Mirror," 
that general Lee in confidence communi- 
cated to a friend the important secret that 
he was the author of these celebrated 
letters ; but, whether Lee ever made such a 
communication or not, nothing is more 
palpable than that he did not write them— 
since it is a notorious fact, that during the 
whole, or nearly the whole, of the period 
in which they successively appeared, this 
officer was on the continent of Europe, 
travelling from place to place, and occupy- 
ing the whole of his time in very different 
pursuits. 

The friend to whom this Communication 
is said to have been made, is a Mr T. 
Rodney, who declares as follows in a com- 
munication inserted in the above-mentioned 
American periodical work. 

' In the fall of 1773, not long after ge- 
neral Lee had arrived in America, I had the 
pleasure of spending an afternoon in his 
company, when there was no other person 
present. Our conversation chiefly turned 
on politics, and was mutually free and open. 
Among other things, the Letters of Junius 
were mentioned, and general Lee asked 
me, who was conjectured to be the author 
of these letters. I replied, our conjectures 
here generally followed those started in 
England ; but for myself, I concluded, 
from the spirit, style, patriotism, and poll- 



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PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



AT- 



tical information which they displayed, 
that lord Chatham was the author ; and yet 
there were some sentiments there that indi- 
cated his not being the author. General 
Lee immediately replied, with considerable 
animation, affirming, that to his certain 
knowledge, lord Chatham was not the 
author ; neither did he know who the 
author was, any more than I did ; that 
there was not a man in the world, no, not 
even Woodfall, the pubUsher, that knew 
who the author was ; that the secret rested 
solely with himself, and for ever would re- 
main with him. 

' Feeling, in some degree, surprised at 
this unexpected declaration, after pausing 
a httle, I replied: "No, general Lee,' if 
you certainly know what you have affirmed, 
it can no longer remain solely with him ; 
for, certainly, no one could know what you 
have affirmed, but the author himself! " 

'Recollecting himself, he replied: "I 
have unguardedly committed myself, and 
it zuould be hut folly to deny to you that I 
a77i the author ; but I must request that 
you will not reveal it during my life ; for it 
never was, nor never will be, revealed by 
me to any other." He then proceeded to 
mention several circumstances to verify his 
being the author ; and, among them, that 
of his going over to the Continent, and ab- 
senting himself from England most of the 
time in which these Letters were first pub- 
hshed in London, &c., &c. This he thought 
necessary, lest, by some accident, the au- 
thor should become known, or at least sus- 
pected, which might have been his ruin, 
had he been known to the court of London, 
&c.' 

The account from which we have made 
this extract was reprinted in the St James's 
Chronicle for April i6, 1803, which the 
editor prefaces by observing, ' Of ^Ir Rod- 
ney, or of the degree of credit that may 
reasonably be attached to his declaration, 
we know nothing ; but the subject is so 
curious, that we think our readers will not 
be averse from having their attention once 
more drawn to it." 

The public do not in any degree appear 



to have been influenced either by general 
Lee's pretended assertion, or Mr Rodney's 
positive declaration : and this claim had 
totally died away like the rest, when in 
1807 it was revived by Dr Girdlestone of 
Yarmouth, Norfolk, who endeavoured to 
establish general Lee's pretensions by a 
comparison of Rodney's statement with Mr 
Langworthy's Memoirs of the general's life, 
in a pamphlet published anonymously, 
under the title of ' Reasons for rejecting 
the presumptive evidence of Mr Almon, that 
Mr Hugh Boyd was the writer of Junius, 
with passages selected to prove the real 
author of the Letters of Junius.' And in 
consequence of this revival of ^Ir Lee's 
claim, the editor feels himself called upon 
to examine its foundation somewhat more 
in detail. 

The passages selected are in no respect 
convincing to his mind, and do not appear 
to have been so to that of the public. But 
without entering upon so disputable a ques- 
tion as that of a superiority of literary' taste, 
it will be sufficient to remark that the great 
distance of general Lee from England dur- 
ing the period in which the letters of Junius 
were published, together with the different 
line of politics which he pursued, render it 
impossible that I^ee could have been the 
author of these letters. 

The correspondence of general Lee pre- 
vious to his quitting England for America, 
in August, 1773, as published by Mr Lang- 
worthy in the memoirs of his life, and 
adverted to in Dr Girdlestone's pamphlet, 
extend through a period of about thirteen 
months, from Dec. i, 1766, to Jan. 19, 
1768, and give us the following dates. 

1766, Dec. I. To the King of Poland, 

from London. 
25. The Prince of Poland, tlie 
same. 

1767, May I. Mr Coleman, from ^^'ar- 

saw. 
2. Mrs Macaulev,^ the same. 



^ The letter was not addressed to ^Nlrs I\Ia- 
cauley, but to lady Blake. Edit, of the present 
work. 



42 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



1767, May 4. Louisa C, the same. 

4. Lord Thanet, the same. 
Aug. 16. King of Poland, Kami- 
neclc. 

1768, Jan. 19. Sir C. Davers, Dijon. 
The dates of the letters written by Junius 

under his occasional signatures are as fol- 
lows : 
1767, April 28. Poplicola. 

May 28. The same in answer to a 
letter of Sir William 
Draper's, of May 21. 
June 24. Anti-Sejanus, Jun. 
Aug. 25. A Faithful Monitor, on 
the subject of lord 
Townshend's appoint- 
ment to be Lord Lieut, 
of Ireland, which took 
place the preceding 
Aug. 12. 
Sept. 16. Correggio. 
Oct. 12. Moderator, in answer to a 
letter of October 6, 
22. Grand Council. 
31 No signature, in answer 
to a letter of Oct. 27. 
Dec. 5. Y.Z. on the King's speech, 
on opening the parlia- 
ment Nov. 24, 1767 : 
the receipt of which will 
be found acknowledged 
by the printer in his 
usual method among 
the ' answers to corre- 
spondents,' Nov. 30. 
19. No signature, on the sub- 
ject of American poli- 
tics. 
22. Downright. 
It is only necessary for the reader to com- 
pare these two lists of dates, and places ; as 
for example, London, and Warsaw, or 
Kamineck, during the two months of May 
and August, and to observe the rapidity 
with which the letters of Junius were fur- 
nished, in answer to the different subjects 
discussed, to obtain a full proof that the 
latter list of letters could not have been 
written by the author of the former. 

These remarks however relate only to 



the year 1767. Let us see how the account 
stands for 1769, being the year in which the 
author first appeared before the public un- 
der his favourite signature (with the single 
exception of Miscellaneous Letter, No. LIL). 
It is difficult to ascertain exactly at what 
places general Lee was residing during this 
period. Langworthy's Memoirs abound 
with erroneous dates, which are not ma- 
terial however to the present question. 
The only serviceable hint that can be col- 
lected from them is, that he was rambling 
somewhere or other abroad, and ' could 
never stay long in one place : ' to which the 
editor adds, 'that we can collect nothing 
material relative to the adventures of his 
travels, as his memorandum-books only 
mention the names of the towns and cities 
through which he passed. That he was a 
most rapid and very active traveller is cer- 
tain,' p. 8. The account furnished by 
Rodney confirms this statement, by telling 
us, ' He then proceeded to mention several 
circumstances to verify his being the author ; 
and, among them, that of his going over to 
the Continent, and absenting himself from 
England most of the time in which these 
letters were first published in London, &c., 
&c. This he thought necessary, lest, by 
some accident, the author should become 
known, or, at least, suspected, which might 
have been his ruin, had he been known to 
the court of London, &c.' 

It is clear, therefore, that during the 
whole or the greater part of 1769, general 
Lee was rambling over the continent ; and 
of course had no possibility of keeping up a 
very close correspondence with any person 
at home. Yet the following table of the 
Letters of Junius, written either under nis 
favourite or occasional signatures, or pri- 
vately to Mr Woodfall, will show that in the 
course of this very year, the author main- 
tained not less than fifty-four communica- 
tions with Mr Woodfall : that not a single 
month passed without one or more acts of 
intercourse : that some of diem had not less 
than seven, and many of them not less than 
six, at times directed to events that had 
occurred only a few days antecedently: that 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



43 



the two most distant communications were 
not more than three weeks apart, that 
several of them were daily, and the greater 
number of them not more than a weelc from 
each other. 



1769. 

January- 
February 


SI. 


July 


8. 


October 


5- 


7- 




15- 


— 


13- 


— 


21. 


— 


17- 


— 


^7- 


March 


3. 


— 


IQ. 


— 


19. 


— 


18. 


— 


21. 


— • 


20. 


April 


7- 


— 


29. 


November 


8. 


— 


10. 


August 


I. 


— 


12. 


— 


12. 


— 


6. 


— 


14. 


— 


20. 


— 


8. 


— 


15- 


— 


■2Z- 


— 


14. 


— 


lb. 


— 


24. 


— 


16. 


— 


25- 


— 


27. 


— 


22. 


— 


2S- 


]\Iay 


6. 


September 


4- 


— 


29. 


— 


30. 


— 




December 


2. 


June 


6. 


— 


8. 


— 


12. 


— 


10. 


• — 


10. 


— 


IQ. 


— 


12. 


— 


19. 


— 


19. 


— 


22. 


— 


25- 


— 


20. 



There is but one conclusion that can be 
drawn from a perusal of this table : which 
is, that the writer of the letters, of which it 
forms a diary, could not have been travel- 
ling over the continent during the year 1769 
to which it is limited, and consequently that 
general Lee, who was travelling over the 
continent, and who appears to have been 
chiefly in remote northern parts of it, could 
not be Junius. 

The editor has observed that it is equally 
obvious general Lee could not have been 
Junius, from the different hne of pohtics 
professed by the two characters ; and not 
merely professed but fought for to his own 
outlawry by the former. Junius, it has 
been already remarked, was a warm and 
determined friend to Mr George Grenville ; 
a zealous advocate for the Stamp Act, Mr 
Grenville's most celebrated measure ; and a 
decided upholder of the power of the British 
parUament to legislate for America, in the 
same manner as for any county in England. 
And it was because Mr Lee was an invete- 
rate oppugner of these doctrines, and was 
determined to fight against them, and even 
against his nadve country, if she insisted 
upon them, that he fled to the United States, 
took a lead in their armies, and powerfully 
contributed to their independence. The en- 



suing extracts taken from his letters con- 
tained in Mr Langworthy's Memoirs, give 
his own opinions in his own words ; and 
they may be compared with those of Junius 
that follow the preceding extracts from 
Mr Btirke. 

' You tell me the Americans are the most 
merciful people on the face of the earth : 
I think so too ; and the strongest instance 
of it is, that they did not long ago hang up 
you, and every advocate for the Stamp Act."' 

'As to the rest who form what is called 
the opposition, they are so odious or con- 
temptible, that the favourite himself is 
preferable to them ; such as Grenville, 
Bedford, Newcastle, and their associates. 
Temple is one of the most ridiculous order 
of coxcombs.'^ 

' A formidable opposition is expected; but 
the heads are too odious to the nation in 
general, in my opinion, to carry their point. 
Such as Bedford, Sandwich, G. Grenville, 
and, with submission, your friend Mans- 
field.' ^ 

' We have had twenty different accounts 
of your arrival at Boston, which have been 
regularly contradicted the next morning ; 
but as I now find it certain that you are 
arrived, I shall not delay a single instant 
addressing myself to you. It is a duty I 
owe to the friendship I have long and sin- 
cerely professed for you ; a friendship to 
which you have the strongest claims from 
the first moment of our acquaintance : there 
is no man from whom I have received so 
many testimonies of esteem and affection ; 
there is no man whose esteem and affection 
could in my opinion have done me greater 
honour. * * * * •* * *- * *■ I 
shall not trouble you with my opinion of 
the right of taxing America withotit her own 
consent, as I am afraid from what I have 
seen of your speeches, that you have already 
formed your creed on this article ; but I 
will boldly affirm, had this right been 
established by a thousand statutes, had 
America admitted it from time immemorial, 



^ Memoirs, p. 54, in a letter to W. H. Dray- 
ton, a member of congress. 
^ lb., p. 294. 3 lb., p. 297. 



44 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



it would be the duty of every good English- 
mafi to exert his utmost to divest parlia- 
ment of this right, as it must inevitably 
work the subversion of the whole empire. * 
******* On these principles, 
I say, Sir, every good Englishman, ab- 
stracted of all regard for America, must 
oppose her being taxed by the British par- 
liament ; for my own part I am convinced 
that no argument (not totally abhorrent from 
the spirit of liberty, and the British con- 
stitution) can be produced in support of 
this right. ** ***** *I 
have now. Sir, only to entreat, that what- 
ever measure you pursue, whether those 
which your real friends (myself amongst 
the rest) would wish, or unfortunately those 
which our accursed misrulers shall dictate, 
you will still believe me to be personally, 
with the greatest sincerity and affection, 
yours, &c., C. Lee.'^ 

It would be waste of time to pursue the 
claimi of general Lee any further : though a 
multitude of similar proofs to the same 
effect might be offered if necessary. 

Another character to whom these letters 
have been ascribed is Mr Wilkes ;.but that 
he is not the author of them must be clear 
to every one who will merely give a glance 
at either the public or the private letters. 
Wilkes could not have abused himself in 
the manner he is occasionally abused in the 
former ; nor would he have said in the lat- 
ter (since there was no necessity for his so 
saying), ' I have been out of town for three 
weeks ' ^ at a time when he was closely 
confined in the King's Bench. 

Of all the pretenders however to the hon- 
our of having written the letters of Junius, 
Hugh Macaulay Boyd has been brought 
forward with the most confidence : yet 
of all of them there is not one whose claims 
are more easily and completely refuted. It 
is nevertheless necessary, from the assur- 

^ Letter to persuade general Eurgoyne to join 
the Americans. Memoirs, p. 323—330- See 
JuNius's opinion of general Burgoyne, Letter 
XXXIV. 

2 Private Letters, No. 11. This letter is dated 
Nov. 8, 1769. Wilkes entered the King's Bench 
prison April 27, 1768, and was liberated April 



ance with which they have been urged, to 
examine them with some degree of detail. 

Hugh Macaulay Boyd was an Irishman of 
a respectable family, who was educated for 
the bai, which he deserted, at an early age, 
for politics, and an unsettled life, that per- 
petually involved him in pecuniary dis- 
tresses ; and who is known as the author 
of 'The Freeholder," which he wrote at 
Belfast, in the beginning of 1776 ; ' The 
Whig,' consisting of a series of revolution- 
ary papers which he published in the Lon- 
don Conrant, between November, 1779, 
and March, 1780 ; and the ' Indian Ob- 
server,' a miscellany of periodical essays 
published at Madras in 1793.^ ^^ his pub- 
lic conversation he was an enthusiastic 
admirer of the style and principles of 
Junius ; and in his political effusions he 
perpetually strove to imitate his manner ; 
and, in many instances, copied his sen- 
tences verbally. On this last account the 
three advocates for his fame, Mr Aim on who 
has introduced him into his Biographical 
Anecdotes, Mr Campbell who has pub- 
lished a life of him, and prefixed it to a 
new edition of ' Boyd's Works,' and Mr 
George Chalmers, who has entered largely 
into the subject, in his ' Appendix to the 
Supplemental Apology,' have strenuously 
contended that Boyd and Junius were the 
same person ; an opinion which, they think, 
is rendered decisive from the following 
anecdote, as given in the words of Mr. 
Chalmers himself. 

' Boyd was in the habit of frequenting 
the shop of Almon, who detected him, as 
the writer of Junius, as early as the autumn 
of 1769. At a meeting of the booksellers 
and printers, H. S. Woodfall read a letter 
of Junius, which he had just received, be- 
cause it contained a passage that related 
to the business of the meeting. Almon had 
thereby an opportunity of seeing the hand- 

18,1770. — See further the private correspondence 
between Junius and Mr Wilkes. 

3 He is also said by his friends to have written 
various letters in the Public Advertiser, in the 
years 1769, 1770, 177T, and afterwards in 1779; 
the former under a questionable signature, the 
latter under that of Democrates or Democraticus. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



- 



45 



writing of the manuscript, without dis- 
closing his thoughts of the discovery. The 
next time that Boyd called on him in Pic- 
cadilly, Aim on said to him, ' I have seen a 
part of one of JUNlus's Letters, in manu- 
script, which I believe is your hand-writing' 
Boyd instantly changed colour ; and after a 
short pause, he said, 'the similitude of 
hand-writing is not a conclusive fact,' 
[proof]. Now, Aim on does not deliver 
these intimations, as mere opinions ; but, 
he speaks, hke a witness, to facts, which he 
knows to be true. It is a fact, then, that 
Almon taxed Boyd with being the writer of 
JUNius's Letters ; that Boyd thereupon 
changed colour ; and that he only turned 
off the imputation, by the obvious remark, 
that comparison of hand-writing is not de- 
cisive evidence, to prove the writer. Add 
to this testimony, that Boyd was, by nature, 
confident, and, by habit, a man of the town, 
a sort of character, who is not apt to blush. 
From the epoch of this detection, it was 
the practice of Almon, when he was asked 
who was the writer of Junius, to say, that 
he suspected Junius was a broken gentle- 
man, without a guinea in his pocket.' 

Mr Almon' s own words in relating this 
anecdote are as follow : ' The moment I 
saw the hand-writing I had a strong suspi- 
cion that it was Mr Boyd's, whose hand- 
writing I knew, having received several 
letters from him concerning books.' And he 
afterwards adds in reference to Boyd's 
reply to him, ' though these words do not 
acknowledge the truth of the suspicion, 
they do not, however, positively deny it.' ^ 

This reply, that ' the similitude of hand- 
writing is not a conclusive proof,' is called 
by Mr Chalmers an ' obvious remark ; ' 
he might have added that the remark is 
just 'ds general SiS it is obvious, and conse- 
quently that it admits of no particular de- 
duction. It neither denies nor affirms, but 
leaves the question, or rather the suspicion, 
precisely where it was at first. 

But, say these gentlemen, it was preceded 
by a change of colour : yet whether this 

^ Letter from J. Almon to L. D. Campbell, 
Esq., Dec. lo, 1798. 



change were to a flush or a paleness, or any 
other hue, does not appear. Let it be taken 
for granted, however, that they mean Ma- 
caulay Boyd blushed, and consequently 
that he exlnbited, on the spur of the mo- 
ment, a secret sense of shame : yet what 
had that man to be ashamed of, upon a 
detection of this kind, who openly gloried 
in the principles of Junius, who had carried 
his own avowed sentiments immeasurably 
farther, who was for ever publicly imitating 
his style and copying his phrases ? — this 
man, who was ' by nature confident, and 
by habit a man of the town, a sort of cha- 
racter who is not apt to blush,' nothing 
surely could have given him a higher de- 
light than to have been suspected to have 
been Junius himself : nothing could more 
agreeably have flattered his vanity. His 
cheeks ^.o7(7Zf^^ with 71 flush of rapture upon 
the supposed detection, and he could not 
even consent to dissipate the fond illusion 
by telling the whole truth. Shame he 
could not feel ; and as to the passion of 
fear, it must not be mentioned for a \\\q- 
ment;_/^(3r w^ould have made him turn 
pale, but not have blushed. 

Yet these gentlemen, in the ardour of 
their pursuit, prove too much for their own 
cause ; since we at length find that, after 
all, there was NO similitude of hand- 
writing whatever, or at least none that 
could answer their purpose. The letter 
shown by Woodfall, Almon asserted to be 
in the common hand-writing of Boyd, the 
hand-writing employed by him in his com- 
mon and avowed transactions, and that he 
knew it to be Boyd's on this very account. 
Now it so happened that Mr Woodfall was 
also well acquainted, in consequence of a 
similar correspondence, with the hand- 
writing of Mr Boyd ; and Woodfall, whose 
veracity could not be questioned, and who 
had far better opportunities of comparing 
the autographs together, denied that the 
letters of Junius were written in the hand- 
writing of Boyd ; adding, that Almon, 
from the casual glance he had obtained, 
had conjectured erroneously. The difficulty 
was felt and acknowledged; and the follow- 



46 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



ing ingenious expedient was devised to get 
rid of it. It was contended that B6yd had, 
about the period of JUNlUs's first appear- 
ance, accustomed himself to what he used 
to call, and his commentators and biogra- 
phers call after him, a disguised hand ; and 
that he uniformly employed this disguised 
hand in writing these letters, in order to 
prevent detection. And this ingenious dis- 
covery was afterwards brought forward 
as an evidence of Boyd's good sense and 
discretion, and an additional demonstration 
that he was the actual writer of these let- 
ters. ' It would require strong proof in- 
deed, ' says Mr Chalmers, ' to satisfy a 
reasonable mind, that the writer of JUNius's 
Letters would send them to the printer in 
his real hand-writing. It is impossible to 
conceive, that such a man, as Boyd, would 
take such successful pains to disguise his 
hand-writing, if he had not had some de- 
sign to deceive the world.' 

But this is to involve the argument in 
even more self-contradiction than ever. Ju- 
nius, whoever he was, wrote his letters, we 
are told, in a disguised hand-xvriting, in 
order to avoid detection : the letter which 
Almon saw was not in a disguised hand- 
writing, but in the open and avowed hand- 
writing of Boyd, with which Almon was 
well acquainted, and which was made use 
of by Boyd in his co?nmon transactions and 
correspondence. Upon their own reasoning, 
therefore, Boyd could not have been the 
author of the letters of Junius. 

But we are told, in reply to this second 
difficulty, that the disguised hand-writing of 
Boyd, though different from his common 
hand-writing, was nevertheless not so dif- 
ferent, but that those who v/ere familiar 
with the latter could easily trace its origin, 
and identify it with the former : ' I have 
already proved,' says Mr Campbell, ' that 
those who were acquainted with the one, 
would, upon inspection of the other, dis- 
cover a strong resemblance between them.'^ 
The result of coarse is, that Almon pene- 
trated the deception, although from a mo- 

* Life of Boyd, p. 157. 



mentary glance, while Woodfall was inca- 
pable of doing so, notwithstanding his 
superior opportunities. Yet surely never 
was such a disguise either attempted or con- 
ceived before. The author wishes, we are 
told, to dissemble his hand-writing, in order 
to avoid detection ; and he devises a dis- 
guised hand-writing that can only be traced 
home and identified by those who are 
acquainted with his common hand-writing; 
as if his common hand-writing could be 
identified by strangers as a matter of course. 

A disguised h.?iXid-vfxiimg that should con- 
ceal him from all who were ignorant of his 
real hand-writing, and expose him to all 
who were acquainted with it, was a truly 
briUiant invention, and altogether worthy 
of Mr Boyd's country and pretensions. Yet, 
after all, we must not forget, that the hand- 
writing supposed to have been seen by Al- 
mon, if Boyd's at all, was not the mystical, 
esoteric autography, the Ispa ypamxara of 
the initiated, the disguised character that 
could be detected by nobody but those who 
were acquainted with his common writing, 
but the common and undisguised character 
itself, his general and avowed hand-writing 
employed on purposes of ordinary business, 
and which, says Mr Almon, ' I knew,' in 
consequence of ' having received several 
letters from him concerning books.' 

But this is not the only disguise which 
Mr Boyd must have had recourse to, and 
which he is admitted to have had recourse 
to, if he were the real author of these cele- 
brated epistles. He must have disguised 
his usual style even more than his usual 
hand-zuriting, and that by the very extra- 
ordinary assumption of an excellence which 
does not elsewhere appear to have belonged 
to him ; for it is not pretended by any of 
his advocates that the general merit of any 
one of his acknowledged productions is 
equal to the general merit of the letters of 
Junius; but merely asserted that there is in 
his works a general imitation of the man- 
ner of the latter, together with an occasional 
copy of his very phrases and images, and 
I that he has at times produced passages not 
inferior to some of the best that Junius ever 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



47 



wrote. 'Of all the characters,' says Mr 
Chalmers himself, ' who knew Boyd person- 
ally, I have only met with one gentleman 
who is of opinion that he was able to write 
JUNiUS's letters.' ^ And Mr Campbell has 
hence conceived it necessary to offer two 
reasons for this palpable inferiority of style. 
The one is, that all the ackjiowledged pro- 
ductions of Boyd were written in a hurry, — 
sta7is pede in uno — while the letters of Ju- 
nius, contrary indeed to his otherwise 
uniform method, were possibly composed 
with considerable pains, and corrected by 
numerous revisions. The other consists of 
a long extract from the Rambler, in denial 
of the position that 'because a man has 
once written well, he can neve:r under any 
circumstances write ill.' ^ 

Now the whole of this reasoning, if rea- 
soning it may be called, is founded on gra- 
tuitous assumptions alone, and may be just 
as fairly applied to any one else of the sup- 
posed writers of the Letters of Junius as to 
Mr Boyd. It is admitted that he occasion- 
ally wrote passages of considerable merit ; 
and it is admitted also, that he was an 
imitator of JUNlUS's style, and a frequent 
copyist of his very words and images. But 
this last fact is against Boyd, instead of 
being in his favour, for the style of Junius 
is original and strictly his own, he is no- 
where a copyist, and much less a copyist of 
himself. Boyd might characteristically 
write, as he has done in his Freeholder, 'long 
enough have our eyes ached over this ban-en 
prospect, where no verdure of virtue quick- 
ens, ' because Junius before him had written, 
' I turn with pleasure from that barren 
waste in zuhich no salutary plant takes root, 
710 verdure quickens;' but JUNIUS could 
not write so, because his genius was far too 
fertile for him to be driven to the dire neces- 
sity of copying from his own metaphors, and 
even had he done it in the present instance, 
he was too manly a writer to have introduced 
into the simile the affected and contempt- 
ible alliteration of 'verdure of virtue.' 

If Boyd therefore wrote Junius, he must 

^ Supplement, p. 94. 
° Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 31. 



have been possessed of powers of which he 
has never otherwise given any evidence 
whatever, and must not only have disguised 
his hand, but, as was well observed on a 
former occasion by the late Mr W. Wood- 
fall, have disguised his style at the same 
time ; and this too ' in that most extraordin- 
ary way of writing above his own reach of 
literary talent,' judging of his abilities from 
every existing and acknowledged document. 
To conceive that a man of versatile genius 
might disguise his accustomed style of 
writing by adopting some other style on a 
level with his owft, is not difficult ; but to 
conceive, under the circumstances of his 
authenticated talents, that Boyd could dis- 
guise his avowed style by assuming that of 
Junius, is to conceive, though the difference 
between them was not altogether so extreme, 
that a sign-post painter might disguise him- 
self under the style of sir Joshua Reynolds, 
or a street-fiddler under that of Cramer. 

In effect Boyd appears to have been an 
enthusiastic admirer of the writings of Ju- 
nius, ambitious enough to try to imitate 
them, and vain enough to wish to be 
thought the author of them. By the deep 
interest he displayed in their behalf, he once 
or twice ^ induced his wife to challenge him 
with having written them ; — when accident- 
ally taxed by Alraon with the same fact, he 
could not restrain his feelings, and his 
cheeks flushed with rapture beneath the 
suspicion ; and when, upon a visit to Ire- 
land in the year 1776, he wrote his address 
to the electors of Antrim, under the title of 
'The Freeholder,' he so far succeeded by 
eulogizing JUNIUS, by quoting his letters, 
and imitating his manner, as to induce a 
few other persons to entertain the same idea, 
and, what was of no small gratification to 
him, to acquire the honour of being gen- 
erally denominated Junius the second. Yet, 
say his advocates, he never dared to avow 
that he was Junius, because Junius had 
declared in his Dedication, ' I am the sole 
depositary of my own secret, and it shall 
perish with me.' 



3 Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 136. 



48 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



Upon the whole, however, these visits to 
Ireland are by no means favourable to Mr 
Boyd's claims ; for the letters of Junius 
published in August, 1768, under the sig- 
natures of Atticus and Lucius, were written 
during one of them ; and from the rapidity 
with which they seized hold of the events of 
the moment, and replied to the numerous 
vindications and apologies of the govern- 
ment-party, must have been writteji (not at 
Belfast, but) in London, or its iinmediate vi- 
cinity.^ While his visit to the same country 
in 1772 was chiefly in consequence of ex- 
treme pecuniary distress, which had oppress- 
ed him for the preceding eighteen months 
or two years, and had driven him from the 
world, through a fear of being arrested; such 
were the opposite circumstances of Junius, 
that the latter was refusing, at this very 
moment, the moiety of the profits resulting 
from the sale of his own edition of his let- 
ters, repeatedly pressed upon him, and to 
which he was fairly entitled ; and offering, 
from a competent purse, a pecuniary in- 
demnification to Woodfall on account of his 
prosecution by the crown. 

There is, however, a note inserted in 
JUNiUs's own edition of these letters,^ in 
relation to lord Irnham, and his baseness 



' Campbell in his Life of Boyd, p. 22, relates 
the following anecdote of that gentleman, which 
occurred during the before-mentioned visit to 
Ireland in the summer of 1768. ' One evening 
wliile Mr Flood sat at his own table, after dinner, 
entertaining a large company, of which Mr Boyd 
was one, he received an anonymous note, en- 
closing a letter on the state of parties, signed 
Sijtdercombe. The note contained a request 
that Mr Flood would peruse the enclosed letter, 
and that if it met his approbation he would get it 
published, which he accordingly did in a paper 
of the following morning, and the letter produced 
a verj"- strong sensation on the public mind.' Mr 
Campbell proceeds to state that ' every endeavour 
was made, without effect, to discover the author : 
that Mrs Boyd always thought that Sindercombe 
was her husband's production, and that many 
years afterwards she was satisfied that her con- 
jecture w.-is founded in fact.' If Mrs Boyd were 
correct in her conjecture, as to her husband 
being the author of the letter under this signa- 
ture, it would of itself all but indisputably prove 
that he was not the writer of the letters of Ju- 
nius ; as on Dec. 26, 1772, nearly twelve months 
after Junius had ceased to publish under this 
signature, and many months after he had de- 



to a young and confidential friend, that has 
been conceived by these same gentlemen 
as almost decisive in favour of Mr Boyd's 
pretensions ; the young man here alluded 
to, having been, as it should seem, one of 
Mrs Boyd's guardians ; the two families to 
which the fact relates, from the peculiar 
motives they possessed for keeping it a 
secret, not being supposed to have divulged 
it to any one, and Mrs Boyd herself having 
only communicated it in strict confidence 
to her husband. Yet the reader of the en- 
suing Private Letters, after witnessing the 
rapidity with which Junius became inform- 
ed of Mr Garrick's intimation to the king, 
and Svvinney's visit to lord G. Sackville, 
will have no difficulty in conceiving that 
Junius, though totally unacquainted with 
Mr Boyd or his family, might have easily 
acquired a knowledge of secrets far more 
securely locked up than the present. In 
reality, from Mr Campbell's own relation 
of this anecdote, it seems rather a matter 
of wonder that it should have been a secret 
to any one, than that it should have been 
known to Junius at the time of his narrat- 
ing it ; for it appears that at least six per- 
sons were privy to the transaction almost 
from its first existence : the debauchee and 



cllned to write under <iny other, Sindercombe 
addresses the following card to him : 

^ For the Puhlic Advertiser. 

A CARD. £>ec. 26, 1772. 

'Sindercombe laments that Junius 
is silent at a season that demands his utmost 
eloquence. Sindercombe has long waited with 
impatience for the completion of that promise, in 
which every friend to liberty is so deeply in- 
terested. Junius has long since pledged him- 
self that the corrupt administration of lord To wns- 
hend in Ireland " shall not be lost to the public." 
He now calls upon Junius to fulfil that promise.* 

That is, Boyd, the writer of Junius as Camp- 
bell contends, calls upon himself to fulfil a 
promise which he had not the smallest intention 
to perform, as may be seen by reference to 
Private Letter, No. 6^. Sindercombe is a sig- 
nature of some peculiarity, and never appeared 
in the Public Advertiser during the period in 
which the writer of the letters of Junius was a 
correspondent in that paper, which the reader 
will perceive was from April 28, 1767, to May 12, 
1772. 

^ See p. 324 of this work. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY, 



49 



the prostitute, the injured bridegroom and 
his two brothers, and Mrs Boyd as a part 
of the bridegroom's family/ — Yet, from 
these three slender facts, — Boyd's imitation 
of the style of Junius, Almon's suspicion 
concerning his hand-writing, and the anec- 
dote of lord Irnham, in conjunction with 
a few others of a nature merely collateral, 
and which, when separated from them, 
prove nothiing whatever, these gentlemen 
undertake to ' regard it as a moral certainty 
that Macaulay Boyd did write the Letters 
of Junius.'^ 

The late Mr Woodfall, indeed, made no 
scruple of denying the assertion peremp- 
torily, admitting at the same time, that he 
was not absolutely certain who did write 

^ In point of fact, the anecdote here referred 
to was publicly known and propagated not less 
than three years earlier than the first edition of 
the Letters of Junius, in which it is introduced 
as a note. For it appears in a letter in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser of April 7, 1769, with the signature 
ol Rece7is, written by this same Junius; from 
which the note in question is but a mere tran- 
script, and given without altering a word. And 
5'et Mr Almon, in the preface to his own edition 
of JuNius's Letters, in which he has taken care 
to bestow abundant abuse on the printer of the 
Public Advertiser and his brother, because they 
did not chuse to unfold to him all they were 
acquainted with on this subject, has not scrupled 
to assert with his usual confidence, that ' this 
note certainly was not written till after Junius, 
having finally ceased to write under that sig- 
nature, collected his letters and published them 
together, with many additions ; which was in 
the course of 1772.' Pref. p. Ivi. This, how- 
ever, is only one specimen of Mr Almon's general 
accuracy in the prosecution of his favourite 
topic : yet it is useless to add more : the death 
of the writer has put him beyond all power of 
reply ; nor should even this have been noticed, 
but to show how absurd were the pretensions of 
a man, so vain, so precipitate, and so incautious, 
to the character of an oracle upon this or any 
other subject ; and how insolent it was in him to 
charge others with ignorance, incapacity, and 
falsehood, who were possessed of better sources 
of information, and evinced a more punctilious 
adherence to truth. The letter itself is as fol- 
lows : and it is copied for a comparison with the 
note. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

7 Aj>}-il, 1769. 
Mr Woodfall, 
There is a certain family in this country, 
on which nature seems to have entailed an 



them. But this testimony, it seems, though 
from the printer of the letters themselves, 
and who, moreover, through the whole 
period of their publication, was in habits of 
confidential correspondence with the author, 
is of no consequence. Let us see by what 
curious process of logic this testimony is 
attempted to be invalidated : the reader 
will meet with it in Mr Chalmers's pam- 
phlet, who thus observes and reasons : 

' A few weeks after the pubhcation of 
Almon's anecdotes, in 1797, Mr H. S. 
Woodfall, meeting the anecdote writer at 
Longman's shop, complimented him on his 
entertaining book ; but said that he was 
" mistaken, in supposing Mr Boyd to have 
been the author of JUNius's Letters ; " and 



hereditary baseness of disposition. As far as 
their history has been known, the son has regu- 
larly improved upon the vices of his father, and 
has taken care to transmit them pure and un- 
diminished into the bosom of his successor. In 
the senate, their abilities have confined them to 
those humble, sordid services, in which the 
scavengers of the ministry are usually employed. 
But in the memoirs of private treachery, they 
stand first and unrivalled. 'I'he following story 
will serve to illustrate the character of this re- 
spectable family, and to convince the world that 
the present possessor has as clear a title to the 
infamy of his ancestors, as he has to their estate. 
It deserves to be recorded for the curiosity of the 
fact, and should be given to the public as a 
warning to every honest member of society. 

The present lord Irnham, who is now in the 
decline of fife, lately cultivated the acquaintance 
of a younger brother of a family, with which he 
had lived in some degree of intimacy and friend- 
ship. The young man had long been the dupe 
of a most unhappy attachment to a common 
prostitute. His friends and relations foresaw the 
consequences of this connexion, and did every 
thing that depended upon them to save him from 
ruin. But he had a friend in lord Irnham, whose 
advice rendered all their endeavours ineffectual. 
This hoary letcher, not contented with the en- 
joyment of his friend's mistress, was base enough 
to take advantage of the passions and folly of a 
young man, and persuaded him to marry her. 
He descended even to perform the office of father 
to the prostitute. He gave her to his friend, 
who was on the point of leaving the kingdom, 
and the next night lay with her himself 

Whether the depravity of the human heart can 
produce anj' thing more liase and detestable than 
this fact, must be left undetermined, until the 
son shall arrive at his father's age and experi- 
ence. RECENS. 

- See Chalmers's Supplement, p. 94. Camp- 
bell's Life, 173, 277. 

4 



50 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



then added, with an emphasis, that "Mr 
Boyd was not the author of them." To 
these emphatical observations Mr Alrrion 
replied, that "he had no doubt of Mr 
Boyd's being- the author of those letters ; 
that as you, Mr H. S. Woodfall, never 
knew who was the author, you cannot un- 
dertake to say who was not the author of 
those letters." Mr Woodfall departed 
without making any reply. What reply 
could he make ? It is absurd in any man, 
who does not know the true author of Ju- 
Nius's Letters, to say, that Macaulay Boyd 
was not the writer of them, in opposition to 
affirmative proofs. Yet, Mr H. S. Wood- 
fall afterwards told Mr L. D. Campbell, 
that " Mr Boyd was not the writer of Ju- 
Nius's letters," without pretending, how- 
ever, that he knew the true author." 

Now every one who knew Mr H. S. 
Woodfall, knew him also to be a man of 
strict, unimpeachable veracity ; a man who 
would not have ventured to speak decisive- 
ly upon this or any other point, if he had 
not had very sufficient grounds. We are 
asked what reply he could have made ? and 
are told that his negative assertion was ab- 
surd against the affirmative proofs offered. 
These affirmative proofs have been already 
sufficiently noticed ; our next business then 
is to state what reply Mr Woodfall could 
have made if he had chosen, and perhaps 
would have made if he had been differently 
addressed, of the absurdity of which the 
reader shall determine when he has pe- 
rused it : it shall be founded upon negative 
arguments alone. Woodfall well knew the 
hand-writings of both Junius and Boyd, 
and was in possession of many copies of 
both ; and knowing them, he well knew 
they were different. He well knew that 
Junius was a man directly impUcated in 
the circle of the court, and immediately 
privy to its most secret intrigues : and that 
Boyd was very differently situated, and that 
whatever information he collected was by 
circuitous channels alone. Junius he knew 



^ Boyd was born in October, 1746, and Ja- 
Nius's first letter, under the signature of Popll- 
cola, appeared in the Public Advertiser April 



to be a man of affluence, considerably su- 
perior to his own wants, refusing remunera- 
tions to which he was entitled, and offering 
reimbursements to those who suffered on 
his account ; — Boyd to be labouring under 
great pecuniary difficulties, and ready to 
accept whatever was offered him ; or, in the 
language of Mr Almon, ' a broken gentle- 
man without a guinea in his pocket.' Ju- 
nius he knew to be a man of considerably 
more than his own age, who from a long 
and matured experience of the world, was 
entitled to read him lessons of moral and 
prudential philosophy ; Boyd to be at the 
same time a very young man/ who had not 
even reached his majority, totally without 
plan, and almost without experience of any 
kind, who in the prospect of divulging him- 
self to Woodfall, could not possibly have 
written to him ' after long experience of 
the world, I affirm before God I never knew 
a rogue who was not unhappy.' ^ Boyd he 
knew to be an imitator and copyist of Ju- 
nius ; Junius to be no imitator or copyist 
of any man, and least of all of himself. Ju- 
nius he knew to be a decided mixt-mon- 
archist, who opposed the ministry upon 
constitutional principles ; Boyd to be a 
wild, random republican, who opposed 
them upon revolutionary views: Junius 
to be a writer who could not have adopted 
the signature of Democrates or Democrati- 
cus ; Boyd a writer who could, and who, 
we are told, did do so, in perfect uniform- 
ity with his poHdcal creed. Woodfall, it is 
true, did not pretend to know Junius per- 
sonally, but from his hand-writing, his style 
of composition, age, poUtics, rank in life, 
and pecuniary affluence, he was perfectly 
assured that Junius could not be Boyd. 
It was possible therefore for Mr H. S. 
Woodfall to have made so7ne reply if he had 
chosen ; and it was possible also for him to 
have said, without absurdity, and in oppo- 
sition to the affirmative proofs of his bio- 
graphers, that Macaulay Boyd was not the 
writer of JUNius's Letters. 



28, 1767, when Boyd had not, as yet, attained 
his 2ist year. 

" Private Letter, No. 44. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



SI 



A thousand other proofs, equally cogent 
and insurmountable, might be advanced, if 
necessary, against the pretensiqns of Mr 
Boyd. Among these let the reader compare 
the letter of Junius, subscribed Vindex, 
March 6, 1771, Miscellaneous Letters, No. 
XCL, in which he publicly lidicules Mr 
Laughlin Maclean, upon his defence of the 
ministry, in regard to the Falkland Islands. 
Mr Laughlin Maclean is well known to 
have been the best and steadiest friend that 
Boyd ever possessed ; and a friend who 
adhered to him uninterruptedly from 1764 
to 1778,^ in which year Maclean com- 
menced a voyage to India upon official 
business relating to the Nabob of Arcot. It 
was Maclean who, according to his bio- 
grapher, furnished Boyd with the greater 
part of the secret transactions of our own 
government, and the intelligence he made 
use of in relation to the oriental concerns 
of the Nabob Mahomed Ali Khaan ; who 
largely and liberally assisted him with 
pecuniary aid while at home, and * faith- 
fully promised him he would, upon his 
return from India, assist in clearing him 
from all his pecuniary difficulties.' The 
proofs are unquestionable, that the above 
letter was written by Junius ; and that he 
wrote it also in contempt and ridicule of 
Laughlin Maclean, who instead of being, 
as Mr Campbell affirms, an opponent of 
the ministry at this time, was an avowed 
defendant of them. Will Mr Boyd's bio- 
graphers and advocates, after this anecdote, 
so far vilify his memory as to contend that 
it was written by himself ? 

Of all the reputed authors of these cele- 
brated addresses, Dunning, lord Ashburton, 

^ See Mr Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 117, 
125, 209, 210. In p. 141, he gives us the follow- 
ing account of Mr Boyd, in support of his asser- 
tion that he was the writer of these letters. 
' From this time [Nov. 27, 1771,] till the 20th of 
January following, Mr Boyd's whole time was 
occupied in examining the law books and state 
trials above mentioned, and in writing with his 
usual secrecy for the Public Advertiser : Ju- 
Nius's elaborate letter to lord Mansfield, in 
which he strove hard to make good his charge 
against him, Is dated the 21st of January, 1772 : 
about three weeks after the publication of this 
letter Mr Boyd went to Ireland; and Junius 



offers the largest aggregate of claim in his 
favour ; and, but for a few facts which seem 
decisive against him, might fairly be ad- 
mitted to have been the real Junius. His 
age and rank in life, his talents and learn- 
ing (though perhaps not classica/leciniing), 
his briUiant wit, and sarcastic habit, his 
common residence, during the period in 
question, his pohtical principles, attach- 
ments, and antipathies conspire in marking 
him as the man : but unfortunately for 
Stich a conclusion, Dunning was solicitor- 
general at the time these letters first ap- 
peared, and for more than a twelvernonth 
afterwards : and Junius himself has openly 
and solemnly affirmed, ' I am no lawyer by 
profession ; nor do I pretend to be more 
deeply read than every English gentleman 
should be in the laws of his country.' ^ 
Dunning was a man of high unblemished 
honour as well as of high independent 
principles ; it cannot therefore be supposed 
that he would have vilified the king, while 
one of the king's confidential servants and 
counsellors : nor would he, as a barrister, 
have written to Woodfall in the course of a 
confidential correspondence, ' / am advised 
that no jury will find ' a bill.^ 

Another person who has had a claim ad- 
vanced in his favour upon the same subject, 
is the late celebrated Henry Flood, M. P. 
of Ireland. Now, without wandering at 
large for proofs that Mr Flood could not 
have been the writer of the Letters of Ju- 
nius, it is only sufficient to call the reader's 
attention to the two following facts, which 
are decisive of the subject in question : 

First, Mr Flood was in Ireland throughout 
a great part of the summer of 1768, and at 

ceased to write under that signature for the Pub- 
lic Advertiser.' The reader will perceive by a 
reference to Private Letters, Nos. 40 and 48, 
that the letter to lord ]\Iansfield was finished 
some considerable time before it made its ap- 
pearance in the Public Advertiser ; and by com- 
paring the dates of the Private Letters subse- 
quent to that publication, up to March 5, 1772, 
of which there are no less than seven, he will be 
satisfied that it was totally impossible for the 
writer of the Letters of Junius to have been in 
Ireland at the period described by Mr Camp- 
bell. 
^ Preface, p. 115, 3 Private Letter, No. 18. 



52 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



a time when Junius, whoever he may have 
been, was perpetually corresponding with 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, and 
with a rapidity which could not have 
been maintained, not only in Ireland, but 
even at a hundred, and occasionally at less 
than fifty, miles distance from the British 
metropolis. This fact may be collected, 
among other authorities, from the following 
passage in Mr Campbell's Life of Boyd, 
and is just as adverse to the pretensions of 
the one as of the other. 

' In the summer of 1768 Boyd went to 
Ireland for a few months, on some private 
business. During his stay in DubUu he 
was constantly in the company of Mr 
Flood." 

Next, by turning to the Private Letter of 
Junius, No. 44, of the date of Nov. 27, 
1771, the reader will find the following 
paragraph : ' Ifear your friend Jerry Dy- 
son will lose his Irish pension. — Say 
received." The mark 'received' occurs 
accordingly in the Public Advertiser of the 
day ensuing. Now by turning to the Irish 
debates of this period, we shall find that 
the question concerning this pension was 
actually determined by the Irish parliament 
just two days before the date of the above- 
mentioned Private Letter, and that Mr 
Flood was. one of the principal opponents 
of the grant, a circumstance which pre- 
cludes the possibility of believing him to 
have written the letter in question. We 
shall extract the article from whence this 
information is derived, from the Public 
Advertiser of Dec. 18, 1771. 

' Authentic copy of the conclusion of the 
speech which Mr Flood made in the Irish 
House of Commons, on Monday the 25th 
of November last, when the debate on the 
pension of Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., came on 
before the committee of supphes : 

' But of all the burthens which it 

has pleased government to lay upon our 
devoted shoulders, that which is the subject 
of the present debate is the most grievous 
and intolerable. — Who does not know 
Jeremiah Dyson, Esq. ? — We know little of 
him indeed, otherwise than by his name in 



our pension Hst ; but there are others who 
know him by his actions. This is he who 
is endued with those happy talents, that he 
has served every administration, and served 
every one with equal success — a civil, pli- 
able, good-natured gentleman, who will do 
what you will, and say what you please — 
for payment. 

' Here Mr Flood was interrupted, and 

called to order by Mr M , who urged 

that more respect ought to be paid to Mr 
Dyson as one of his Majesty's officers, and, 
as such, one whom his Majesty was gra- 
ciously pleased to repose confidence in. 
However, Mr Plood went on. 

' As to the royal confidence reposed in 
Mr Dyson, his gracious Majesty (whom 
God long preserve) has been graciously 
lavish of it, not only to Mr Dyson, but to 
the friends of Mr Dyson ; and I think the 
choice was good : The royal secrets will, 
I dare say, be very secure in their breasts, 
not only for the love they bear to his gra- 
cious Majesty, but for the love they bear to 
themselves. In the present case, however, 
we do not want to be informed of that part 
of Mr Dyson's character — we know enough 
of him — everybody knows enough of him 
— ask the British treasury — the British 
council — ask any Englishman who he is, 
what he is — they can all tell you, for the 
gentleman is well known. — But what have 
we to do with him ? He never served 
Ireland, nor the friends of Ireland. And if 
this distressed kingdom was never benefited 
by his counsel, interest, or service, I see no 
good cause why this kingdom should re- 
ward him. Let the honourable members 
of this House consider this, and give their 
voices accordingly. — For God's sake let 
every man consult his conscience : If Jere- 
miah Dyson, Esq., shall be found to deserve 
this pension, let it be continued ; if not, let 
it be lopped off our revenue as burthen- 
some and unnecessary.' 

Let us proceed to the pretensions that 
have been offered on the part of lord 
George Sackville as the real Junius. The 
evidence is somewhat indecisive even to the 
present hour. Sir William Draper divided 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



53 



his suspicions between this nobleman and 
Mr Burke, and upon the personal and 
unequivocal denial of the latter, he trans- 
ferred them entirely to the former : and 
that sir William was not the only person 
who suspected his Lordship even from the 
first, is evident from the Private Letter of 
Junius, which asserts that Swinney had 
actually called upon lord Sackville and 
taxed him with being Junius, to his face/ 
This letter is, in fact, one of the most 
curious of the whole collection : if written 
by lord George Sackville it settles the point 
at once ; and, if not written by him, pre- 
supposes an acquaintance with his Lord- 
ship's family, his sentiments, and his con- 
nexions, so intimate as to excite no small 
degree of astonishment. Junius was in- 
formed of Swinney's having called upon 
lord George Sackville, very shortly after his 
call, and he knew that before this time he 
had never spoken to him in his life. It is 
certain then, that lord George Sackville was 
early and generally suspected, that Junius 
knew him to be suspected without assert- 
ing, as in the case of the author of ' The 
Whig,'^ &c., that he was suspected wrong- 
fully; and that this nobleman, if not Junius 
himself, must have been in habits of close 
and intimate friendship with him. The 
talents of lord George Sackville were well 
known and admitted, and his pohtical 
principles led him to the same side of the 
question that was so warmly espoused by 
Junius. It is said, however, that on one 
occasion his Lordship privately observed to 
a friend of his, ' I should be proud to be 
capable of writing as Junius has done ; 
but there are many passages in his letters I 
should be very sorry to have written.' ^ 
Such a declaration, however, is too general 
to be in any way conclusive : even Junius 
himself might, in a subsequent period, have 
regretted that he had written some of the 
passages that occur in his letters. In the 
case of his letter to Junia, we know he did 
from his own avowal. It is nevertheless 



^ Private Letter, No. 5. • ^ Id., No. 23. 
3 See Chalmers's Appendix to the Supple- 
mental Apology, p. 7. 



peculiarly hostile to the opinion in favour 
of lord George Sackville, that Junius should 
roundly have accused him of want of cour- 
age, as he has done in Miscell. Letters, No. 
VII. And if we examine into his Lord- 
ship's style, and even into his own opinion of 
his own style, we shall meet with facts not 
much less hostile. Of his own composition 
he thus speaks in a letter published shortly 
after his return from Germany, drawn up 
in justification of his conduct at the battle 
of Minden : — ' I had rather upon this occa- 
sion submit myself to all the inconveniences 
that may arise from the want of style than 
borrow assistance fro7)i the pen of others, 
as I can have no hopes of establishing my 
character, but from the force of truth.' 

And that his Lordship has not in this 
passage spoken with an undue degree of 
self-modesty, will, we think, be evident 
froin the following copy of a letter address- 
ed by himself, upon the preceding subject, 
to his friend colonel Fitzroy. 

Copy of lord G. Sackville' s letter to col. 
Fitzroy. 

Dear Sir, Minden, Aug. 2, 1759. 

The orders of yesterday, you may be- 
lieve, affect me very sensibly. His Serene 
Highness has been pleased to judge, con- 
demn, and censure me, without hearing 
me, in the most cruel and unprecedented 
manner ; as he never asked me a single 
question in explanation of any thing he 
mjght disapprove : and as he must have 
formed his opinion upon the report of 
others, it was still harder he would not give 
me an opportunity of first speaking to him 
upon the subject : but you know, even in 
more trifling matters, that hard blows are 
sometimes unexpectedly given. If any- 
body has a right to say that I hesitated in 
obeying orders, it is you. I will relate what 
I know of that, and then appeal to you for 
the truth of it. 

When you brought me orders to advance 
with the British cavalry, I was near the 
village of Halen, I think it is called, I 
mean that place which the Saxons burnt. 
I was' there advanced by M. Malhorte's 



54 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



order, and no further, when you came to 
me. Ligonier followed almost instantly ; 
he said, the whole cavalry was to advance. 
I was puzzled what to do, and begged the 
favour of you to carry me to the Duke, that 
I might ask an explanation of his orders : 
— But that no time might be lost, I sent 
Smith with orders to bring on the British 
cavalry, as they had a wood before they 
could advance, as you directed ; and I 
reckoned, by the time I had seen his Se- 
rene Highness, I should find them forming 
beyond the wood.— This proceeding of 
mine might possibly be wrong ; but I am 
sure the service could not suffer, as no 
delay was occasioned by it. — The Duke 
then ordered me to leave some squad- 
rons upon the right, which I did, and to 
advance the rest to support the infantry. 
This I declare I did, as fast as I imagined 
it was right in cavalry to march in line. — 
1 once halted by lord Granby to compleat 
my forming the whole. Upon his advanc- 
ing the left before the right I again sent to 
him to stop : — He said, as the Prince had 
ordered us to advance, he thought we 
should move forward. — I then let him pro- 
ceed at the rate he liked, and kept my right 
up with him as regularly as I could, 'till 
we got to the rear of the infantry and our 
batteries.— We both halted together, and 
afterwards received no order, 'till that which 
was brought by col. Web and the duke of - 
Richmond, to extend in one line to the 
morass. — It was accordingly executed; and 
then, instead of finding the enemy's cavalry 
to charge, as I expected, the battle was 
declared to be gained, and we were told to 
dismount our men. 

This, I protest, is all I know of the mat- 
ter, and I was never so surprized, as when 



I beard the Prince was dissatisfied that the 
cavalry did not move sooner up to the 
infantry.— It is not my business to ask, 
what the disposition originally was, or to 
find fault with any thing. — All I insist upon 
is, that I obeyed the orders I received, as 
punctually as I was able ; and if it was to 
do over again, I do not chink I would have 
executed them ten minutes sooner than I 
did, now I know the ground, and what was 
expected ; but, indeed, we were above an 
hour too late, if it was the Duke's intention 
to have made the cavalry pass before our 
infantry and artillery, and charge the 
enemy's line. — I cannot think that was his 
meaning, as all the orders ran to sustain 
our infantry : — and it appears, that both 
lord Granby and I understood we were at 
our posts, by our halting, v/hen we got to 
the rear of our foot. 

I hope I have stated impartially the part 
of this transaction that comes within your 
knowledge. — If I have, I must beg you 
would declare it, so as I may make use of 
it in your absence ; for it is impossible to 
sit silent under such reproach, when I am 
conscious of having done the best that was 
in my power. — For God's sake, let me see 
you, before you go to England. 
I am, my dear sir. 
Your faithful humble servant, 

GEORGE SACKVILLE. 

Upon the claim then of lord George 
Sackville, to the honour of having written 
the Letters of Junius, the above are the 
chief facts which the editor is able to lay 
before his readers : he has laid them ac- 
cordingly, and shall conclude with leaving 
them to the exercise of their own judg- 
ment. . 



PRIVATE LETTERS 



J U N I U S 



TO MR WOODFALL. 



Sir, 



No. I. 

April 2.0, 1769. 
I AM preparing a paper, which 
you shall have on or before Saturday night. 
Advertise it for Monday.^ Junius on 
Monday. 

C. 
If any enquiiy is made about these pa- 
pers, I shall rely on your giving me a hint. 



^ Letter XL 

^ This note was addressed to Mr Woodfall, 
with a desire that it should ' be opened by him- 
self only.' 

2 The letter is printed In the Miscellaneous 
Collection, No. LV., and the great question 
alluded to was upon the Middlesex petition 
against the seating of colonel Luttrell for that 
county. The debate took place on Monday, the 
8th of May, in the House of Commons, and con- 
tinued from half past one o'clock in the afternoon, 
till half-past four the ne.\t morning, when, upon 
a division, there appeared for the petition 152, 
against it 221. The speakers on this occasion, 
in favour of the petition, were Mr Dowdeswell, 
lord J. Cavendish, Mr Wedderburne, Mr Gren- 
ville, Mr Cornwall, Mr Burke, Mr Seymour, 
and sir George Saville : those against it, Mr 
Stanley, sir G. Osborne, Dr Blackstone, Mr W. 
Ellis, Mr Thurlow, Mr C. J. Fox, Mr Moreton, 
and sir F. Norton. 

In consequence of the rejection of the petition 
to the House of Commons, the following was 
soon afterwards presented to the King, which 
we insert, as we shall also, in their due places, 
those of London and Westminster, upon similar 
subjects, with a view of giving some idea of the 
general politics of the day, and the warmth of 
the respective controversies that distinguished it. 



No. 2. 
Sir, Friday, May ^th, 1769. ^ 

It is essentially necessary that the 

inclosed should be published to-morrow, as 

the great question comes on on Monday, 

and lord Granby is already staggered. ^ 

If you . should receive any answer to it, 



TO THE KING S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 

'The humble petition of the Freeholders of 
the County of Middlesex. 

* Most gracious Sovereign, 

'We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal 
subjects, the Freeholders of the County of Mid- 
dlesex, beg leave with all affectionate submission 
and humility, to throw ourselves at your royal 
feet, and humbly to implore 3'our paternal atten- 
tion to those grievances of which this county and 
the whole nation complain, and those fearful ap- 
prehensions with whicii the whole British empire 
is most justly alarmed. 

' With great grief and sorrow, we have long 
beheld the endeavours of certain evil-minded 
persons, who attempt to infuse into your royal 
mind, notions and opinions of the most dangerous 
and pernicious tendency, and who promote and 
counsel such measures as cannot fail to destroy 
that harmony and confidence which should ever 
subsist between a just and virtuous Prince, and 
a free and loyal people. 

' For this disaffected purpose they have intro- 
duced into every part of the administration of 
our happy, legal constitution, a certain unlimited 
and indefinite discretionary power ; to prevent 
which is the sole aim of all our laws, and was 
the sole cause of all those disturbances and re- 
volutions which formerly distracted this unhappy 
country ; for our ancestors, by their own fatal 



56 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



you will oblige me much by not publishing 
it, till after Monday. 



experience, well. knew that in a state where dis- 
cretion begins, law, liberty, and safety end. 
Under the pretence of this discretion-, or, as it 
was formerly, and has been lately called — Law 
of state — we have seen 

' English subjects, and even a member of the 
British Legislature, arrested by virtue of a 
general warrant issued by a secretary of state, 
contrary to the law of the land. — 

'Their houses rifled and plundered, their 
papers seized, and used as evidence upon trial. — 

'Their bodies committed to close imprison- 
ment. — 

' The Habeas Corpus eluded. — 

'Trial by jury discountenanced, and the first 
law officer of the crown publicly insinuating that 
juries are not to be trusted. — 

'Printers punished by the ministry in the 
supreme court without a trial by their equals, 
without any trial at all. — 

' The remedy of the law for false imprisonment 
debarred and defeated. — 

'The plaintiff and his attorney, for their ap- 
peal to the law of the land, punished by expenses 
and imprisonment, and made, by forced engage- 
ments, to desist from their legal claim. — 

'A writing determined to be a libel by a court 
where it was not cognizable in the first instance : 
contrary to lav/, because all appeal is thereby cut 
off, and inferior courts and juries influenced by 
such predetermination. — 

' A person condemned in the said courts as the 
author of the supposed libel unheard, without 
defence or trial. — 

'Unjust treatment of petitions, by selecting 
only such parts as might be wrested to criminate 
the petitioner, and refusing to hear those which 
might procure him redress. — 

'The thanks of one branch of the Legislature 
proposed by a minister to be given to an acknow- 
ledged offender for his offence, with the declared 
intention of screening him fronr the law. — • 

' Attachments wrested from their original in- 
tent of removing obstructions to the proceedings 
of law, to punish by sentence of arbitrary fine 
and imprisonment, without trial or appeal, sup- 
posed offences committed out of court. — • 

'Perpetual imprisonment of an Englishman 
without trial, conviction, or sentence, by the 
same mode of attachment wherein the same per- 
son is at once party, accuser, judge, a;id jury. — 

' Instead of the ancient and legal civil police, 
the military introduced at every opportunity, 
unnecessarily and unlawfully patrolling the 
streets to the alarm and terror of the inhabit- 
ants. — 

' The lives of many of your Majesty's innocent 
subjects destroyed by military execution. — 

'Such military execution solemnly adjudged 
to be legal. — 

' Murder abetted, encouraged, and rewarded. — 
' The civil magislracy rendered contemptible 



Sir, 



No. 3. 

Saturday, July i^th, 1769. 



I HAVE received the favour of 
your note. From the contents of it, I 



by the appointment of improper and incapable 
persons. — 

' The civil magistrates tampered with by ad- 
ministration, and neglecting and refusing to dis- 
charge their duty. — 

' Mobs and riots hired and raised by the min- 
istry, in order to justify and recommend their 
own illegal proceedings, and to prejudice your 
Majesty's mind by false insinuations against the 
loyalty of your Majesty's subjects. — 

' The freedom of election violated by corrupt 
and undue influence, by unpunished violence and 
murder. — 

' The just verdicts of juries, and the opinion of 
the judges, over-ruled hy false representations to 
your Majesty : and the determinations of the law 
set aside, by new, unprecedented, and dangerous 
means ; thereby leaving the guilty without re- 
straint, and the injured without redress, and the 
lives of your Majesty's subjects at the mercy of 
every ruffian protected by administration. — 

' Obsolete and vexatious claims of the crown 
set on foot for partial and election purposes. — 

' Partial attacks on the liberty of the press : 
the most daruig and pernicious libels against 
the constitution and against the liberty of the 
subject, being allowed to pass unnoticed, whilst 
the slightest libel against a minister is punished 
with the utmost rigour. — 

' Wicked attempts to increase and establish a 
standing army, by endeavouring to vest in the 
crown an unlimited power over the militia, 
which, should they succeed, must, sooner or 
later, subvert the constitution, by augmenting 
the power of administration in proportion to their 
delinquency. — 

' Repeated endeavours to diminish the import- 
ance of members of parliament individually, in 
order to render them more dependent on ad- 
ministration collectively. Even threats having 
been employed by ministers to suppress the free- 
dom of debate; and the wrath of parliament 
denounced against measures authorized by the 
law of the land. — 

' Resolutions of one branch of the Legislature, 
set up as the law of the land, being a direct 
usurpation of the rights of the two other 
branches, and therefore a manifest infringement 
of the constitution. — 

* Public Imoney shamefully squandered and 
unaccounted for, and all enquiry into the cause 
of arrears into the civil list prevented by the 
ministry. — 

' Enquiry into a pay-masters public accounts 
stopped in the Exchequer, though the sums ac- 
counted for by that pay-master amount to above 
forty millions sterling. — 

' Public loans perverted to private ministerial 
purposes. — 

' Prostitution of public honours and rewards to 



p 



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'^Ht^L 



d-eJt. 









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jpiAJUUnt-Ji- H 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



57 



imagine you may have something to com- 
municate to me. If that be the case, I beg 
you will be particular ; and also that you 
will tell me candidly whether you knoAV or 
suspect who I am. Direct a letter to Mr 
William Middietoni to be left at the bar of 
the New Exchange Coffee-house on Mon- 
day, as early as you think proper. 

I am, Sir, your most obedient, and 
most humble servant, 

C. 



No. 4. 
(Private) 
Sir, July ijth, 1769- 

Mr Newberry having thought pro- 
per to reprint my Letters, ^ I wish at least he 
had done it correctly. You will oblige me 
much by giving him the following hint ^ to- 
morrow. The inclosed'^ when you think 
proper. 

' Mr Newberry having thought proper to 

men who can neither plead public virtue nor 
services. — 

' Irreligion and immorality so eminently dis- 
countenanced by your Majesty's royal example, 
encouraged 03'- administration, both by example 
and precept. — 

' The same discretion has been extended by 
the same evil counsellors to your Majesty's do- 
minions in America, and has produced to our 
suffering fellow-subjects in that part of the 
world, grievances and apprehensions similar to 
those which we complain of at home. — 

' Most gracious Sovereign, 

' Such are the grievances and apprehen- 
sions which have long discontented and dis- 
turbed the greatest and best part of your Ma- 
jesty's loyal subjects. Unwilling however to 
interrupt your royal repose, though ready to lay 
down our lives and fortunes for your iVIajesty's 
service, and for the constitution as by law estab- 
lished, we have waited patiently expecting a 
constitutional rem.edy by the means of our own 
representatives, but our legal and free choice 
having been repeatedly rejected, and the right 
of election now finally taken from us by the un- 
precedented seating of a candidate who was 
never chosen by the county, and who, even to 
become a candidate, was obliged fraudulently to 
vacatehis seat in parliament, under the pretence 
of _ an insignificant place, invited thereto by the 
prior declaration of a minister, that whoever op- 
posed our choice, though but with four votes, 
should be declared member for the county, we 
see ourselves, by this last act, deprived even of 
the franchises of Englishmen, reduced to the 
most abject state of slavery, and left without 



reprint JUNius's Letters, might at least 
have corrected the errata, as we did con- 
stantly. 

Page I, Line 13, for national read rational. 

— 3, — 4, — luas — iverc. 

— 5, — 15, — indisputable — indis- 

pensable. 
Letter 7, — 4, — in all mazes — in all 

the mazes. 
■ — 15, — 24, — rightest — bright- 

est. 

— 48, — 2, — indiscreet — indi- 

rect.'' 

I did not expect more than the life of a 
newspaper, but if this man will keep me 
alive, let me live without being offensive. 
Speciosa qucero pascere tig res. 



No. 5. 

Sir, Jnlyz-Lsf, 1769, Friday Night. 

I CAN have no manner of objec- 
tion to your reprinting the Letters, if you 



hopes or means of redress but from j'our Majesty 
or God. 

' Deign then, most gracious Sovereign, to 
listen to the prayer of the most faithful of your 
Majesty's subjects ; and to banish from yoar 
royal favour, trust, and confidence, forever, those 
evil and pernicious counsellors, who have en- 
deavoured to alienate the affection of your 
Majesty's most sincere and dutiful subjects, and 
whose suggestions tend to deprive your people 
of their dearest and most essential rights, and 
who have traitorously dared to depart from the 
spirit and letter of those laws which have secured 
the crown of these realms to the House of 
Brunswick, in which we make our most earnest 
prayers to God that it may continue untarnished 
to the latest posterity.' 

Signed by 1565 Freeholders. 

^ Mr William Middleton's Letter is sent as de- 
sired.' Answer to correspondents in the P. A. of 
July 20th, 1769. 

^ Newberry had thought proper at this time 
to publish a spurious and surreptitious edition of 
the first fifteen Letters, as printed in the author's 
edition, under the title of 'The Political Con- 
test;' and it was these unauthorised publications 
that gave the first idea of publishing a genuine 
edition of the whole. 

3 This request does not appear to have been 
complied with ; as the following answer to 
correspondents was inserted in the Public Ad- 
vertiser of the i8th of July :— ' Reasons why the 
hint was not printed are sent to the last men- 
tioned Coffee-house in the Strand, from whence 
our old correspondent will be pleased to send for 
them.' 

4 Letter XVL 



S8 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



think it will answer, which I believe it 
might, before Newberry appeared. If you 
determine to do it, give me a hint, and I 
will send you more errata (indeed they are 
innumerable) and perhaps a Preface. I 
really doubt whether I shall write any 
more under this signature. ^ I am weary 
of attacking a set of brutes, whose writ- 
ings are too dull to furnish me even with 
the materials of contention, and whose 
measures are too gross and direct to be the 
subject of argument, or to require illustra- 
tion. 

That Swinney - is a wretched but a dan- 
gerous fool. He had the impudence to go 
to lord G. Sackville, whom he had never 
spoken to, and to ask him, whether or no 
he was the author of Junius — take care of 
him. 



^ See Dedication, p. 112. 

^ A correspondent of the Printer's. 

3 The Editor has already observed, in the 
Preliiiiinary Essay, that Junius appears to have 
uniformly entertained a good opinion of, or at 
least a partiahty for, lord Holland. The remark 
is not new ; it was noticed long ago by several 
of his opponents. Thus, in a letter subscribed by 
our author, Anti-Fox, and inserted in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser of October i6th, 1771, he thus 



Whenever you have any thing to com- 
municate to me, let the hint be thus, C at 
the zisual -place, and so direct to Mr John 
Fretley, at tlie same Coffee-house, where it 
is absolutely impossible I should be known. 

I did not mean the Latin to be printed. 

I wish lord Holland may acquit hifnself 
with honour.^ If his cause be good, he 
should at once have published that account, 
to which he refers in his letter to the 
mayor.4 

Pray tell me whether George Onslow 
means to keep his word with you, about 
prosecuting.5 Yes or No will be sufficient. 
Your Lycurgus^ is a Mr Kent, a young 
man of good parts upon town. And so I 
wish you a good night. 

Yours, 

C. 



speaks of him : ' I know nothing of Junius ; but 
I see plainly that he has designedly spared lord 
Holland and his family.' See Miscell. Lett. C. 

4 See note A below. 

5 See note B at the conclusion of note A. 

6 Lycurgus was a frequent writer in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser during the spring and summer of 
1769 ; and opposed the ministry, but with less 
violence than most of his contemporaries. 



He seems to refer to a charge of embezzlement 
of the public treasure, made in the City Petition 
presented to his Majesty, Julysth, 1769, of which 
the following is a copy : — 
The humble Petition of the Livery of the City 

of London in Common Hall assembled. 

* Most Gracious Sovereigti, 

'We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal 
subjects, the Livery of the City of London, with 
all the humility which is due from free subjects to 
their lawfid Sovereign, but with all the anxiety 
which the sense of the present oppressions, and 
the just dread of future mischiefs, produce in our 
rp.inds, beg leave to lay before your Majesty 
some of those intolerable grievances which your 
people have suffered from the evil conduct of 
those who have been intrusted with the adminis- 
tration of your Majesty's government, and from 
the secret unremitting influence of the worst of 
counsellors. 

' We should be wanting in our duty to your 
Majesty, as well as to ourselves and our posterity, 
should we forbear to represent to the throne the 
desperate attempts which have been and are too 
successfully made, to destroy that constitution. 



to the spirit of which we owe the relation which 
subsists between your Majesty and the subjects 
of these realms, and to subvert those sacred laws 
which our ancestors have sealed with their blood. 

' Your ministers, from corrupt principles, and 
in violation of every duty, have, by various 
enumerated means, invaded our invaluable and 
unahenable right of trial by jurj'. 

' They have, with impunity, issued general 
warrants, and violently seized persons and private 
papers. 

' They have rendered the laws non-effective to 
our security, by evading the Habeas Corpus. 

'They have caused punishments, and even 
perpetual imprisonment, to be inflicted without 
trial, conviction, or sentence. 

' They have brought into disrepute the civil 
magistracy, by the appointment of persons who 
are, in many respects, unqualified for that im- 
portant trust, and have thereby purposely fur- 
nished a pretence for calling in the aid of a 
military power. 

'They avow, and endeavour to establish a 
maxim, absolutely inconsistent with our consti- 
tution, that ' an occasion for effectually employ- 
ing a military force always presents itself when 
the civil power is trijied with or insulted; ' and 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



59 



by a fatal and false application of this maxim, 
they have wantonly and wickedly sacrificed the 
lives of many of your Majesty's innocent sub- 
jects, and have prostituted your jMajesty's sacred 
name and authority, to justify, applaud, and re- 
commend their own illegal and bloody actions. 

' They have screened more than one murderer 
from punishment, and in its place have unnatu- 
rally substituted reward. 

' They have established numberless unconstitu- 
tional regulations and taxations in our colonies. 
They have caused a revenue to be raised in some 
of them by prerogative. They have appointed 
civil law judges to try revenue causes, and to be 
paid from out of the condemnation money. 

' After having insulted and defeated the law 
on different occasions, and by different contriv- 
ances, both at home and abroad, they have at 
length completed their design, by violently 
wresting froni the people the last sacred right we 
had left, the right of election ; by the unprece- 
dented seating of a candidate notoriously set up 
and chosen only by themselves. They have 
thereby taken from your subjects all hopes of 
parliamentary redress, and have left us no re- 
source, under God, but in your IMajesty. 

'AH this they have been able to effect by cor- 
ruption ; b}^ a scandalous misapplication and em- 
bezzlement of the public treasure, and a shameful 
prostitution of public honours and emploj-ments ; 
procuring deficiencies of the civil list to be made 
good without examination ; and, instead of pun- 
ishing, conferring honours on a pay-master, the 
public defaulter of unaccounted millions. 

' From an unfeigned sense of the duty we owe 
to your Majesty, and to our country, we have 
ventured thus humbly to lay before the throne 
these great and important truths, which it has 
been the business of your ministers to conceal. 
We most earnestly beseech your Majesty to 
grant us redress. It is for the purpose of redress 
alone, and for such occasions as the present, that 
those great and extensive powers are intrusted 
to the crown, by the wisdom of that constitution, 
which your Majesty's illustrious family was 
chosen to defend, and which, we trust in God, 
it will for ever continue to support.' 

Lord Holland suspecting himself to be impli- 
cated in the last paragraph but one of the above 
petition, addressed the following letter to the 
Lord Mayor upon this subject : — 

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE 
LORD MAYOR. 

' My Lord, 

' In a petition presented by your Lord- 
ship it is mentioned as a grievance, Instead of 
p2inishi7tg, cojiferriug honours on a pay-7naster, 
the p7iblicdefa7clier of imaccoziiited millions. lam 
told that I am the pay-master here censured : 
may I beg to know of your Lordship if it is so ? 
If it is, I am sure Mr Beckford must have been 
against it, because he knows and could have 
shown your Lordship in writing, the utter false- 
hood of what is there insinuated. 

' I have not the honour to know your Lord- 
ship, so I cannot tell what you may have heard i 



to induce you to carry to our Sovereign a com- 
plaint of so atrocious a nature. 

' Your Lordship, by your speech made to the 
king at delivering the petition, has adopted the 
contents of it ; and I do not know of whom to 
enquire but of your Lordship concerning this 
injury done to an innocent man, who am by this 
means (if I am the person meant) hung out as an 
object of public hatred and resentment. 

' You have too much honour and justice not to 
tell me whether I am the person meant, and if I 
am, the grounds upon which I am thus charged, 
that 1 ma}' vindicate myself, which truth will 
enable me to do to the conviction of the bitterest 
enerny ; and therefore I may boldly sa}', to your 
Lordship's entire satisfaction, whom I certainly 
have never offended, 

' I am, with the greatest respect, 
' :\Iy Lord, 

' Your Lordship's most obedient 
* And most humble servant, 

' HOLLAND.* 
' Holland House, Kensington, 
'July gth, 1769.' 

To this letter the Lord Mayor returned the 
following answer : — 

' The Lord Mayor presents his compliments 
to lord Holland, and in answer to the honour of 
his Lordship's letter delivered to him. by Mr 
Selwyn, he begs leave to say that he had no 
concern in drawing up the petition from the 
Livery of London to his Majesty ; that he looks 
on himself only as the carrier, together with 
other gentlemen charged by the Livery with the 
delivery of it ; that he does not, nor ever did, 
hold himself accountable for the contents of it, 
and is a stranger to the nature of the supposed 
charge against his Lordship. 

' Ma-nsio7i House, July 10th, 1769.' 

Mr Beckford, seeing his name implicated in 
this correspondence, wrote from the country the 
following letter to a friend, who was a Livery- 
man of the city : — 

'Dear Sir, Fontkill, Jiily 15, 1769. 

' I am as much surprised as you seem 
to be, at seeing my name, and papers in my 
possession, appealed to by a noble Lord. — 
You and my friends in the city think it incum- 
bent on me to vindicate (as thej' are pleased to 
express themselves) my honour and character, 
which is called in question. The only proper 
satisfaction in my pov.-er to give you and my 
other friends, is to relate plain matters of fact, 
to the best of my recollection. 

' In the last session of Parliament, on a ques- 
tion of revenue (as far as my memory serves] I 
did declare to the House that the public revenue 
had been squandered awaj', and that the money 
of the nation had not been regularly audited and 
accounted for. 

'That in the department of the Paj^-office I 
had been informed there were upwards of forty 
millions not properly accounted for ; that the 
officers of the King's E.xchequer were bound in 
duty to see justice done to the public ; that pro- 



6o 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



cess had issued out of the Court of Exchequer, 
and that all proceedings for a certain time had 
been suspended by the king's sign manual. I 
then did declare, that it was an high offence for 
any minister to advise the king to stop the 
course of public justice, without assigning a very 
good reason for such his' advice. I desired the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Lords of 
the Treasury, who sat opposite to me, to set me 
right if my information was not well-founded ; 
but not a single word was uttered in answer by 
any of the gentlemen in administration. 

' After some days had elapsed, I met my friend 
Mr Woodhouse in Westminster Hall, he told me 
I had been misinformed as to what I had men- 
tioned in the House of Commons, and that, if I 
would give him leave, he would send me a paper 
from a noble Lord, which would convince me of 
my mistake. The paper alluded to is in London, I 
therefore cannot speak of the contents with ac- 
curacy and precision : but this I recollect, that the 
perusal of the paper did not convince mc that all I 
had heard was false. It was a private paper, and 
I do not recollect having shown it to more than a 
single person. I have no doubt Mr Woodhouse 
has a copy of the paper by him, and I hope he 
will submit the contents to the judgment of the 
public, in vindication of an innocent man. 
' I am, dear Sir, 

' Your ever faithful and affectionate humble 
servant, 

'WILLIAM BECKFORD.' 

It was in consequence of this letter that lord 
Holland was induced to publish the account 
above referred to by Junius, and again by Mr 
Beckford. Long as it is, it ought not to be 
omitted in this place. 

FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
Letter to H. S. Wood/all. 

' Mr Woodfall, Kingsgate, Jtily 20, 1769. 
' Lord Holland seeing in your paper a 
Letter from Mr Beckford to a Liveryman, of July 
15, 1769, and Mr Woodhouse being at Spa, in 
(Jermany, sends you an authentic copy of the 
paper Avhich he sent by Mr Woodhouse to Mr 
Beckford. He hopes the perusal of it will con- 
vince the reader that all is false that can impute 
any crime to lord Holland. 

' The reader will sec that some of lord Hol- 
land's accounts were then before the auditor; 
and there arc two years' accounts since lodged 
there. 

' He will sec that lord Holland's accounts 
(voluminous and difficult beyond example) have 
not been kept back from inclination, but neces- 
sity ; and not longer than those of his prede- 
cessors. 

' He will see (and is desired to observe par- 
ticularly) that savings, so far from remaining all 
in lord Holland's hands, had been given in and 
voted in aid of the public service to the amount 
of i^9io,S4i. And ;i^43>533 i9-f- l^^: (upon some 
regimental and other accounts being adjusted 
this last winter) have been since paid and voted. 

' He will read in it, that lord Holland desired 
to be shown how he could proceed faster than he 



did. If nobody has shown or can show how that 
might have been, or may be done, does he 
deserve either punishment or censure? And had 
he not a right to think himself sure that Mr 
Beckford must have been against the article in 
the petition relating to him, because Mr Beckford 
knew, and coiild have shown the Lord Mayor in 
tvriting, the utter falsehood of what is there 
insinuated. 

' Lord Holland prints the memorial examined 
by the Treasury, and the sign manual it ob- 
tained ; stopping process (not accounts) for six 
months, which neither did nor could suspend or 
delay the pay-master's accounts an hour. 

'HOLLAND.' 

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACCOUNTS OF THE 
PAY-MASTER GENERAL. 

Why were Lord Holland's accounts, as pay- 
master general, for the years "1757, 1758, and 

1759, not delivered to the auditors before the 
year 1768 ? 

ANSWER. 

The pay-master general's officers being best 
acquainted with army accounts, are employed in 
making up the account of the preceding pay- 
masters. The accounts of the earls of Chatham, 
Darlington, and Kinnoul, and Mr Potter, were 
made up by them, and regularly, and in due 
course delivered to the auditors. 

Great as the army and its expenses were 
during the last war, beyond all former example, 
dispersed in all quarters of the world, and diffi- 
cult as it must have been to keep the accounts in 
any tolerable order, it will be found, upon ex- 
amination, that the accounts of lord Holland as 
pay-master general, are not further back than 
those of his predecessors, and that his Lordship's 
accounts are not kept back, as has been suggest- 
ed, from inclination, but necessity. 

The late Mr Winnington's accounts, for two 
years and a half, from December, 1743, to 24th 
of June, 1746, were declared the 15th of May, 

1760. The earl of Chatham's accounts for nine 
years and a half, from the 25th June, 1746, to 
the 24th of December, 1755, are not yet de- 
clared. 

The earls of Darlington and Kinnoul for 
the year 1756, and the earl of Kinnoul's and Mr 
Potter's for six months, to the 24th of June, 
1757, are now before the auditors. 

The accounts of lord Holland for the years 
1757. 1758, and 1759; likewise the accounts of 
his deputies, attending the army in Germany, 
from the commencement to the end of the late 
war, are also before the auditors for their ex- 
amination, and his Lordship's account for the 
year 1760, is almost ready to be delivered to 
them. 

From the nature and extension of army ac- 
counts, it is most evident to those that are best 
acquainted with them, that it is tedious and diffi- 
cult to bring even regimental accounts to a final 
adjustment ; other parts of the accounts are 
more so. Lord Holland, in the course of the 
years 1759, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, and 1764, has 
paid to regiments and independent companies 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



6i 



;^32o,39i gs. wd., whose accounts are at this time 
unadjusted, for want of proper authorities, and 
till those authorities are obtained the auditor 
will not allow one shilling of said sum in his 
Lordship's account. To obtain those authorities, 
his Lordship has often repeated his solicitations. 

What is the balance of cash in lord Holland's 
hands ? 

ANSWER. 

The meaning of this question can be no other 
than, what savings are in lord Holland's hands? 
Or, in other words, how much has the expense 
in any case fallen short of the sum voted ? 

As to the savings : — so far as the Pay-Office 
has been enabled to state the army accounts, 
they have been given in to parliament. 

From services that have fallen short of the 
sums voted, and from monies paid in by army 
accomptants, lord Holland directed accounts to 
be made up and laid before the House of Com- 
mons ; and accordingly (out of these savings in 
lord Holland's hands) parliament from time to 
time availed itself of the following sums, viz. 

£ s. d. 
Voted in aid of extraordinaries, ") gg 

to December 24, 1763, . j ^"'^ ''■ 

Voted in the year 1764, in aid) r o 

en \ . I "" )■ 170,000 2 8 

of (j-erman claims, . . ) ' '^ 

Voted in the year 1765, in aid ) 

rj-.. • r 2:51,740 2 7 

of ditto service, . . ) ■-' "^ ' 

Voted in the year 1766, in aid 7 /- ^ o 

C.J- ■ t 00,638 2 10 

01 extraordinary services, ) ' -* 

Voted in the year 1767, in aid "l 

of extraordinaries and other ^ 171,571 13 3 

services, . . . ) 

Voted in the year 1768, in aid ) 

of the supply . . f -^Sj/iQ ^S 7 



;^9io,54i 18 3 



His Lordship could by no other means ascer- 
tain and give in to parliament the savings on the 
votes for the arm)', but by the final adjustment 
of army accounts ; what further savings may be, 
is very uncertain, as they cannot be known 
before the services are absolutely determined 
and closed. 

His Lordship is very sorry to say it, that in 
the years 1759, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, and 1764, 
there are not less than fifty-six regiments and 
companies now standing open and unadjusted, 
for want of authorities : and in his ledgers there 
are accounts to a much greater extent, as the 
pay of staff officers, &c. &c. 

It may be seen here that though Mr Winning- 
ton died in April, 174.6, and his executor, Mr 
Ingram, used all possible industry to close his 
accounts, they could not be closed till 1760 ; 
fourteen years. The earl of Chatham went out 
in December, T755, yet are not his accounts 
closed till 1768 ; thirteen years. The earl of 
Kinnoufs are not closed yet, though he has been 
out of the office eleven years. Lord Holland has 
been out three years and a half. Where is the 
wonder his are not closed ? 

If those who complain will show lord Holland 
how he can proceed faster than he does, he will 



be very much obliged to them. Let it be ob- 
served, that he has before the auditors already, 
accounts for more years than Mr Winnington or 
lord Kinnoul had to account for. 

MEMORIAL FOR LORD HOLLAND TO HAVE 
LONGER TLME TO MAKE UP HIS ACCOUNTS 
AS PAY-MASTER GENERAL 

May it please your Lordships, 

I beg to inform your Lordships that a 
process is in the hands of the sheriffs of Middle- 
sex against me to account to his Majesty for the 
monies imprested to me, as pay-master general 
of his Majesty's forces. 

I most humbly apprehend that the regular 
ordinary course of accounting in the Exchequer 
was calculated (when established) for transac- 
tions at home, which are easily and readily to 
be collected and made up at short periods of 
time. 

The accounts of the army when employed 
abroad, particularly, must unavoidably be much 
in arrear from the nature of the service. 

The army payments are necessarily in arrear ; 
and articles, from accidents inevitable, are ob- 
liged to remain often open a long time before 
they can finally be closed. 

The accounts of the last war are voluminous 
and difficult beyond example. The great variety 
of operations, and the very great distance of the 
troops, made, and must make, the correspond- 
ence, and adjusting those accounts with the 
pay-masters and accountants attending them, 
very slow and tedious. These therefore will re- 
quire longer time to make up, both from their 
bulk and difficulty. 

During the course of a war, the troops 
constantly changing and moving, and the 
service in the utmost hurry, it cannot then be 
done with the order and regularity absolutely 
necessary. Since the war the utmost diligence 
has been used in them. The great intricate 
article of Foreign expense (viz. the German) 
has been got together for the whole time (which, 
after the former war, was several years about) ; 
and one- year and a half's general account is 
now made out, and ready to be laid before the 
auditors ; the rest will regularly be laid before 
them as fast as it is possible to make them up. 
Though I have been two years out of employ- 
ment the payments for my time are not yet 
completed. 

I therefore pray your Lordships will be 
pleased to obtain his Majesty's warrant, grant- 
ing me longer time for making up my accounts 
as pay-master general of his Majesty's forces. 
Pay-Office, Horse Giia.7-ds, Which is, S:c. &c. 
■z^th J7me, 1767. HOLLAND. 

king's WARRANT, STAY OF PROCESS AGAINST 
LORD HOLLAND FOR SIX MONTHS. 

Copy. 
George R. 

Whereas our right, trusty, and well- 
beloved Henry lord Holland hath, by the annexed 
memorial, represented, that, from several uii- 



62 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



avoidable causes and difficulties, he hath been 
prevented making up his accompts as late pay- 
master general of our forces ; and we having 
taken the said matter into our royal consideration, 
are graciously pleased to grant unto him a 
further time for making up his said accompts. 
Our will and pleasure therefore is, and we do 
hereby direct, authorize, and require you to 
cause all process against the said Henry lord 
Holland for his accompts, as late pay-master 
general of our forces, to be stayed fot and during 
the term of six months, computed from the day 
of the date hereof. And for so doing this shall 
be your warrant. Given at our Court at Saint 
James's the eighth day of July, 1767, in the 
seventh year of our reign. 

By his Majesty's command, 

GRAFTON. 

C. TOWNSHEND. 

T. TOWNSHEND. 

To our right, trusty, and well-beloved Samuel 
lord Marsham, our Remembrancer in our Court 
of Exchequer. 



B. 

The Mr Onslow here spoken of, as well as in 
various other parts of this work, is the present 
lord Onslow. The history of his dispute with 
the late Mr Home Tooke is as follows : — In the 
Public Advertiser of July 14th, 1769, the follow- 
ing letter made its appearance, addressed 

TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE 

ONSLOW, ESQ. 
Sir, 

I have heard from very good authority 
that one of the Lords of the Treasury has lately 
gained a thousand pounds in a very common and 
usual manner, which is yet likely to be attended 
with a very uncommon and unusual consequence. 

Mr applied to the right honourable Mr 

for his interest for a certain lucrative post in 
America. The gentleman was informed that a 

thousand pounds placed in the hands of Mrs 

would insure him the place. Mr not having 

the money, prevailed on colonel to join with 

him in a bond for that sum to the lady to whom 
he wa; directed. So far. Sir, all is in the common 
track : What follows is the wonderful part of the 
transaction. This Lord of the Treasury kept his 
word, and the gentleman was appointed to the 
office he had paid for ! And stranger still, lord 

• , who discovered this -bargain and sale, is 

offended at it, and insists on the dismission of 
this Lord of the Treasury. Now, Sir, I must 
intreat you to favour one of your constituents 
with the name of this Lord of the Treasury, for 
you, no doubt, who sit at that Board yourself, 
must be acquainted with him. 

ANOTHER FREEHOLDER OF SURREY. 

Ash- Court, July 11. 

To this letter Mr Onslow made the following 
reply, which was published in the same news- 
paper, July 18, ensuing. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, _ _ July 16. 

Having just now read a letter containing, 
by evident insinuation, a most audacious attack 
upon my character, printed by you, in your 
paper of Friday last, asserting a gross and in- 
famous lie from beginning to end ; I do hereby 
publicly call upon you to name the person from 
whom you received the account you have pre- 
sumed to publish. If you are either unable or 
unwilling to do this, I shall most certainly treat 
you as the author, and, in justice both to myself 
and others who are every day thus malignantly 
and wickedly vilified, shall take the best advice 
in the law if an action will not lie for such atro- 
cious defamation, and if I may not hope to make 
an example of the author of it. 

The scurrility in general which has been of late 
so heaped upon me in the public papers, I have 
hitherto treated with the contempt my friends 
and myself thought it deserved, and suffered it 
to pass with impunity ; but this last is so outrage- 
ous, and tends so much to wound my charac- 
ter and honour in the tenderest part, that I am 
determined, if practicable, to see if a jury will 
not do me and the public justice against such a 
libeller, and whether they will not think the 
robbing an innocent man of his character is a 
robbery of the most dangerous kind, and that the 
perpetrators of it will stick at nothing. 

For the present I must content myself with 
only laying before the public the two following 
letters, which will explain to them all the know- 
ledge I had of the detestable fraud, which has 
been taken advantage of to charge me with cor- 
ruption ; a crime, which, of all others, I hold the 
most in abhorrence. I defy the whole world to 
prove a single word in your libellous letter to be 
true, or that the whole is not a barefaced, posi- 
tive, and entire lie. That it is so I do assert, 
and I call upon anybody, if they can, to disprove 
what I say. 

GEORGE ONSLOW. 

Copy of a letter to Mr Onslow, received the 27th 
of June. 
Sir, New Bo7id Street, Jtoie 25, 1769. 

I beg you will pardon my thus address- 
ing you, a liberty I could not think of, was any 
thing less than my family's bread at stake. Some 
weeks past my husband paid a large sum of 
money (which gave us inexpressible sorrow to 
raise) to a party, who protest they are empowered 
by you to insure him, in return, the coUectorship 
of Piscataway in New Hampshire. I have been 
told this day one Hughes is in possession of the 
same, and the Treasury Books confirm the news. 
I beg leave most earnestly to intreat j^ou will in- 
form me whether Mr Hughes is under any en- 
gagement to resign, or whether we are duped by 
those who have taken our money. 

Mr Burns has had the strongest recommenda- 
tions from persons of undoubted veracity, and I 
believe, on all accounts, will be found to be per- 
fectly capable and worthy of the employment. 

Once more I intreat, good Sir, you will excuse 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



63 



this trouble, which is caiTsed by a heart almost 
broken with the fear and terror of a disappoint- 
ment. With the profoundest respect, 
I am, Sir, 

Your most obedient 
humble Servant, 
MARY BURNS. 

Mr Onslow's Answer. 
Mada?4, Etnbcr Court, June 27, 1769. 

Your letter was brought down to me 
hither only to-day, or I should have answered it 
sooner. Without having the honour of being 
known to you or Mr Burns, it gives me much 
concern that anybody should be so imposed upon 
as you have been, and as much indignation that 
my name should be made so infamous a use of. 
I should have been under an equal degree of 
surprise, had I not this morning had some intima- 
tion of the matter from Mr Pownal and Mr 
Bradshaw, and made some enquiry into it of Mr 
Watkins at Charing Cross, with a determination 
to sift this shocking scene of vlllany to the 
bottom, and which I shall now be encouraged in 
by the hopes of getting you your money restored to 
you, as well as the earnest desire I have to bring 
the perpetrators of this roguery to the punish- 
ment and shame they deserve. 

For this purpose, might I beg the favour of 
Mr Burns to meet me at my house in Curzon 
Street, about ten o'clock on P'riday morning. — I 
will go with him to Mr Pownal's, of which I have 
given him notice : and I v/ish Air Burns would 
bring with him Mr Watkins, or anybody else 
that can give light into this unhappy and wicked 
affair. 

Till this morning I never in my life heard a 
single word of either the office itself, nor of any 
of the parties concerned. You will judge then 
of my astonishment, and indeed horror, at hear- 
ing of it to-day from Mr Bradshaw. 
I am, Madam, &c. , 

GEORGE ONSLOW. 

Since writing of the above letters, more of this 
fraud has been detected, and further enquiry is 
making, in order to bring the actors in it to jus- 
tice. A woman of the name of Smith, who 
lives near Broad Street, is the person who ap- 
pears to be principally concerned in the fraud, 
the money being, it seems, for her use. 

The writer of the first address, now authoriz- 
ing the printer to give Mr Onslow his name 
l,which he did, and which was that of the Rev. 
John Home), once more attacked the Right 
Honourable Gentleman as follows, in the same 
paper, July 28, 

TO THE RIGHT HONOTTRABLE 
GEORGE ONSLOW. 
Good Sir, 

If with another innocent man. 
Lord Holland, you were ambitious to add to the 
list of Mr Walpole's Right Honourable authors, 
• you might, like him, have exposed yourself with 
more temper, and have called uames in better 
English. 



I should be sorry to libel you by mistaking 
your meaning, but the strange manner of word- 
ing your first sentence leaves me at a loss to 
know whether you intend that my letter, or 
— your own character, is 'a gross and irifajn- 
ous lie f 7-0711 bcgi7i7ii7ig to etid.' 

You may-save yourself the expense of taking 
' ttie best advice i7i the law.' Depend upon it 
you can never ' hoJ>e to i7zake a7i exa77iple of the 
author, luhen the publisher is U7iable or 701- 
vjilliiig to give 2ip his na77ie.^ And 3'ou need 
not wait for a jury to determme ' that robbing a 
77ta7i is certainly a robbery.' But you should 
have considered some months since that it is the 
same thing whether the man be guiltj' or inno- 
cent- and whether he he robbed of his reputa- 
tion or — of his seat in parliament. 

In the Public Advertiser of Friday, July 14, 

there is a letter frotvi you as well as TO you. 

If that is the scurrility you speak of, I agree 

v/ith 3'ou that it has been treated ivitJi the con- 

tei7ipt it descT-ves by all the world ; but how you 

can say that it has passed with i77jp7i7iity, I own 

I cannot conceive, unless indeed you are of 

opinion with those hardened criminals who think 

that, because there is no corporal sufferance in 

it, the being gibbeted in chains and exposed as 

a spectacle makes no part of their punishment. 

I The letter written by you to Mr Wilkes tends 

more ''to wound your character a7id ho7io!(r,' 

than any other, and yet you pass it over in 

silence. But you shall, if you please, prove to 

the world that those who have neither character 

I nor honour, may still be wounded in a very ten- 

j der part — their interest. And I believe lord 

Hillsborough is too noble to suffer any Lord of 

I the Treasury to prostitute his name and com- 

I mission to bargains like that I have exposed ; 

; but will, if he continues to preside at the Board 

of Trade, resolutelj^ insist either on such Lord's 

full justification or dismission .^ — Hi7ic illtz lach- 

ry77i(s. 

You ' defy the whole "world to prove a single 
word iji 77iy letter to be true ; or that the whole 
is fiot a barefaced, positive, and e7itire lie.^ 
The language of the last part of the sentence is 
such as I can make no use of, and therefore I 
return it back on 3-0U to whom it belongs : The 
defiance in the first part, I accept, and will dis- 
prove what you say. 

My letter can only be false in one particular ; 
for it contains only one affirmation, namely, that 
I heard the storj"- I relate from very good au- 
thority. It then concludes with a question to 
yo\x of — who is this Lord of the Treasury- that so 
abhors corruption ? Which question since you 
have answered, I too will gratify you, and in 
return for yours do hereby direct the printer to 
give j'-ou my name ; which, humble as it is, I 
should not consent to exchange with you in any 
other manner. 

Now, Sir, I do again affirm that I heard the 

storjr from the best authority : And that it is not 

my invention 3='our own letter is a proof, for I 

I might have heard it either from jNIrs Burns, or 

i from Mr Pownal, or INIr Bradshaw, but I heard 

it from better authority. I go further. I do 



64 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



still believe the story as I related it tc be true ; 
nor has any thing you have said convinced me 
to the contrary. I do not mean to charge you 
or any one ; but since you have condescended 
to answer my former question, be kind enough 
to explain what follows. 

Mr Pownal is secretary to the Board of Trade. 
Mr Bradshaw is secretary to the Treasury. 
Why did these two secretaries come together to. 
you ? Were they sent by their principals or 
not? Who first detected this very scandalous 
though very common traffic? Has not lord 
Hillsborough that honour? And is not your 
exaggerated ' abhorretice of corruption, your as- 
tonhJunent, and indeed horror at this shocking 
sce7ie ofviliany' vastly heightened by the calm, 
and therefore unsuspected, disapprobation of his 
Lordship ; who does not seem to think with you 
that every whore should be hanged alive ; but 
only that they should be turned out of honest 
company. 

How came you so instantly to entertain hopes 
of getting the money restored to Mrs Burns ? 
when you declared, that, ' till that morning; 
you never in your life heard a single word of] 
either the office itself, ttor of any of the parties \ 
concer7ied.' Jonathan Wild used to return such 
answers ; because he knew the theft was com- ] 
mitted by some of his own gang. 

You pretend to have given to the public ' all the ! 
kftowledge yoji have of this detestable fraud.' I ! 
cannot believe it, because I find nothing in your \ 
letter on which to found your hopes of restoring 
the money to Mrs Burns ; and especially be- 
cause in three weeks after this letter, i. e. from i 
June 27 to July 18, you have only discovered 
' that Mrs Sfnith appears to be principally con- \ 
cernedin this detestable f-aud, the money beitig, 
it seems, for her 7ise.' Sir, do you not know 
WHOSE wife Mrs Smith is ? And are you not 
acquainted with that gentleman? Have you 
caused Mrs Smith or any one else to be taken , 
into custody ? Have you taken ' the best advice \ 
in lazv, a7id are yoti determined to see if a jury • 
will not do yo7( and the p7iblic justice ' for this 
detestable fraud ? Or is there yet left one crime 
which you abhor more than corruption, and for i 
which you reserve all your indignation ? But i 
why this anger? He that is innocent can easily | 
prove himself to be so ; and should be thankful i 
to those who give him the opportunity by making \ 
a story public. Malicious and false slander never I 
acts in this open manner ; but seeks the covert, j 
and cautiously conceals itself from the party ' 
maligned, in order to prevent ajustification. Ifany : 
person have done your character an injury by a ' 
charge of corruption, they are most guilty who so ■ 
thoroughly believed you capable of that crime, j 
as to pay a large sum of money on the suppo- ' 
sition (an indignity which I protest I would not 
have offered to you, though you had negotiated 
the matter and given the promise yourself,': and 
yet I do not find you at all angry with them ; 
when they tell you their opinion of you without : 
scruple. On the contrary, you pity Mrs Burns 
in the kindest manner, which shows plainly that j 
your honour is not like Caesar's wife. Nay, you 



seem almost to doubt whether you ' might beg 
the favour of Mr Bjcrns to meet you at your 
house in Curzon Street;' that is, you humbly 
solicit Mr Burns to do you xhefavottr of accept- 
ing your assistance in the recovery of his money. 
Archbishop Laud thought to clear himself to pos- 
terity from all aspersions relative to popery, by 
inserting in his diary his refusal of a cardinal's 
hat ; not perceiving the disgrace indelibly fixed 
on him by the offer. ' Mr Buriis has had the 
strongest recommejidations from persons of un- 
doubted veracity, a7td I believe on all acco7(?its 
will befou7id to be perfectly capable a7ul worthy 
the e77iploy77tent.' The letter from Mrs Burns to 
you does by no means declare her to be an ideot. 

Colonel (whom you forbear to mention) is 

a man of sense, and well acquainted with the 
world. It is strange they should all three believe 
you capable of this crime, which ^ of all others 
you most hold i^i abhorre7tce? Mr Pownal, Mr 
Bradshaw, and their principals, are supposed to 
know something of men and things, and there- 
fore I conclude tliey did 7iot believe you con- 
cerned in this business : though I wonder much 
that, 7iot believing it, both the secretaries should 
wait on you so seriously about it ; but perhaps 
they may think, that when honour and justice 
are not the rules of men's actions, there is no- 
thing incredible that may be for their advantage. 
But, Sir, whatever may be their sentiments of 
you, I must intreat you to entertain no resent- 
ment to me, my opinion of your character would 
never suffer me to doubt your innocence. If 
indeed the charge of corruption had been brought 
against a low and ignorant debauchee, who, 
without the gratifications and enjoyments of a 
gentleman, had wasted a noble patrimony 
amongst the lowest prostitutes ; whose neces- 
sities had driven him to hawk about a reversion 
on the moderate terms of one thousand for two 
hundred ; whose desperate situation had made 
hiui renounce his principles and desert his friends, 
those prmciples and those friends to which he 
stood indebted for his chief support ; who for a 
paltry consideration had stabbed a dear old 
FRIEND, and violated the sacred rights of that 
grateful country that continued to the son the 
reward of his father's services : if the charge had 
been brought against such an one, more fit to 
receive the public charity than to be trusted 
with the DISPOSAL and management of the 
public moneys small proof would have been suf- 
ficient ; and instead of considering it as a crime 
the most to be abhorred, we might have suffered 
corruption to pass amongst the virtues of such a 
man. But yours, Sir, is a very different character, 
and situation. In the clear and unincumbered 
possession of the paternal estate with which your 
ancestors have long been respectable ; with a 
pension of three thousand, and a place of one 
thousand a year ; with the certain prospect of 
lord Onslow's large fortune, which your prudence 
will not anticipate ; grateful to your country, 
faithful to your connexions, and firm to your 
principles, it ought to be as difficult to convict ■ 
you of corruption, as a cardinal of fornication ; 
for which last purpose, by the canon law, no less 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



65 



than seventy-two eye-witnesses are necessary. 
Thus, Sir, you see how far I am from casting 
any reflection on your integrity: howe\er if 
notwithstanding all I have said you are still 
resolved to try the determination of a jury, take 
one piece of advice from me ; do not think of 
prosecuting me for an insinuation : alter your 
charge before it comes upon record, to prevent 
its being done afterwards ; for though lord Mans- 
field did not know the difference between the 
words when he substituted the one for the other, 
we all know very well now that it is the tenor 
and not the purport that must convict for a 
libel, which indeed almost every student in the 
law knew before. 

ANOTHER FREEHOLDER OF SURRY. 

The names of lord Hillsborough and Mr Pow- 
nal having been introduced into the preceding 
letter, they thought proper to deny any other 
knowledge of Mr Onslow's supposed turpitude, 
than that proceeding from common report, and 
accordingly inserted the following letters in the 
Public Advertiser on the day after their respect- 
ive dates. Long as this note is, we cannot, in 
justice to Mr Onslow, here omit them. 

TO H. S. WOODFALL, 

Printer of the Public Advertiser. 
Having observed in a newspaper of the 28th 
of July last, that it is insinuated that I have been 
the detector of a supposed crime, imputed to the 
right honourable George Onslow, Esq., I do think 
it an act of common justice to declare, in this 
public manner, that I amentirely ignorant of the 
said supposed crime, and of all circumstances 
relative to it, except that I have heard the story 



mentioned in common conversation, and con- 
stantly treated as a calumny propagated to injure 
Mr Onslow's reputation. 

Hanover Square, HILLSBOROUGH. 

August 2, 1769. 

It having been suggested in a letter ad- 
dressed to the right honourable George Onslow, 
Esq., published in a newspaper dated the 28th of 
July last, that I was, together with Mr Brad- 
shaw, sent to Mr Onslow, on the subject of a 
scandalous transaction, in which Mr Onslow is, 
in the said letter, stated to be concerned; it is 
become necessary for me, in justice to that gen- 
tleman, to declare, that I never was sent to Mr 
Onslow, on that or any other occasion ; but 
having heard this story, I thought it but common 
justice to communicate it to Mr Onslow, which I 
did through the channel of Mr Bradshaw. 

J. POWNAL. 
Whitehall, Ajtgust 2, 1769. 

An action for defamation against Mr Home, 
was brought by Mr Onslow, agreeably to his 
menace, and the damages were laid at ;i{^iq,ooo. 
It was tried before Mr Justice Blackstone, at the 
Surry Assizes held at Kingston, April 6, 1770, 
and terminated in Mr Onslow's nonsuit, in con- 
sequence of the word pounds being inserted in 
the record, instead of the word pound. The 
cause was re-heard before lord chief justice 
Mansfield at the ensuing Summer Assizes, held 
at Guildford, when Mr Onslow was again non- 
suited. The trial is supposed to have cost Mr 
Onslow upwards of ;^i50o in consequence of his 
having retained all the principal counsel upon 
the occasion. 



No. 6. 

Sir, Sunday, Aug. 6, 1769. 

The spirit of your letter ^ con- 
vinces me that you are a much better writer 
than most of the people whose works you 
publish. Whether you have guessed well 
or ill must be left to our future acquaint- 
ance. For the matter of assistance, be 
assured that, if a question should arise upon 
any writings of mine, you shall not want it. 
Yet you see how things go, and I fear my 
assistance would not avail you much. For 
the other points of printing, &c., it does not 
depend upon us at present. My own works 
you shall constantly have, and in point of 
money, be assured you never shall suffer. 

^ The substance of Mr Woodfall's reply to 
Private Letter, No. 3, is not known. 
=* Letter XX. 



I wish the enclosed 2 to be announced to- 
morrow conspicuously for Tuesday. I am 
not capable of writing anything more 
finished. 

Your friend, 

C. 
Your VeridicusS is jMr Whitworth. I 
assure you I have not confided in him. 



No. 7. 

Sir, Wednesday flight, Aug. 16, 1769. 
I HAVE been some days in the 
country, and could not conveniently send 
for your letter until this night.. Your cor- 
rection was perfectly right. The sense re- 



3 Veridicus was a frequent writer in the Public 
Advertiser, in the year 1769, and, as already 
observed in the Preliminary Essay, was Richard 
Whitworth, Esq., M.P. for Stafford. 
5 



66 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



quired it, and I am much obliged to you. 
When I spoke of innutnerable blunders, I 
meant Newberry's pamphlet ; for I must 
confess that upon the whole your papers 
are very correctly printed. 

Do with my letters exactly what you 
please. I should think that, to make a 
better figure than Newberry, some others 
of my letters may be added, and so throw 
out a hint, that you have reason to suspect 
they are by the same author. If you adopt 
this plan, I shall point out those which I 
would recommend ; for you know, I do 
not, nor indeed have I time to, give equal 
care to them all. 

I know Mr Onslow perfectly. He is a 
false silly fellow. Depend upon it he will 
get nothing but shame by contending with 
Horne.i 

I believe I need not assure you, that I 
have never written in any other paper since 
I began with yours. As to Junius, I must 
wait for fresh matter, as this is a character 
which must be kept up with credit. Avoid 
prosecutions if you can ; but, above all 
things, avoid the Houses of Parliament, — 
there is no contending with them. At pre- 
sent you are safe, for this House of Com- 
mons has lost all dignity, and dare not do 
any thing. 

Adieu, 
C. 

No. 8. 

(Private) 
Sir, Sept. lo, 1769. 

The last letter you printed was 
idle and improper, and I assure you printed 
against my own opinion. 2 The truth is, 
there are people about me, whom I would 
wish not to contradict, and who had rather 
see Junius in the papers ever so improperly 
than not at all. I wish it could be recalled. 



^ This contest is already related in the note to 
Private Letter, No. 5. 

^ It occurs in the Miscellaneous Letters, No. 
LIX. In the genuine edition it was omitted for 
the reason which the author has here specified. 

3 This note accompanied the letter to his Grace 
the duke of Bedford, Letter XXIII., and was 



Suppose you were to say — We have some 
reason to suspect that the last letter signed 
yunius i7i this paper, was not written by 
the real Junius, though the observation 
escaped tis at the time : or, if you can hit oft 
any thing yourself more plausible, you will 
much oblige nie, but without a positive 
assertion. Don't let it be the same day 
with the enclosed. Begging your pardon 
for this trouble, I remain your friend and 
humble servant, 

C. 

No. 9. 

(Private) 
Sir, Friday night, Sept. 15, 1769, 

I BEG you will to-morrow adver- 
tise Junius to another duke in our next.^ 
If Monday's paper be engaged, then let it 
be for Tuesday, but not advertised till 
Monday. You shall have it some time to- 
morrow night. It cannot be corrected and 
copied sooner. I mean to make it worth 
printing. 

Yours, 
C. 

No. 10. 

Thursday night, Oct. 5, 1769. 
I SHALL be glad to see the pac- 
quet you speak of.'* It cannot come from 
the Cavendishes, though there be no end 
of the family. They would not be so silly 
as to put their arms on the cover. As to 
me, be assured that it is not in the nature 
of things, that they, or you, or any body 
else should ever know me, unless I make 
myself known. All arts, or enquiries, or 
rewards would be equally ineffectual. 

As to yoii, it is clearly my opinion, that 
you have nothing to fear from the duke of 
Bedford. I reserve some things expressly 
to awe him, in case he should think of 
bringing you before the House of Lords. — 
I am sure I can threaten him privately 



announced agreeably to the above request in the 
Public Advertiser for September 18, 1769. 

4 The nature of this communication is not 
known. 



WL-iUmj 'trnJoLf- kytur^o-n^. ML. Oi/J-^ ^ Jfiui^iwrUj , mr 
,/k^:L ULn^, 'J- i^ JjUxaIu lyu^- .Ip.'i.^h^ir^ , IL<1 ft^ 'Lai^ 









^JjLaJi^ 



' llf fc-*/- f^ Um-U^ ^^^.vi^ixy ■ipji^fiJ'Ui 



..J. I 









if-yi^lt^^ ,^ lie 



urrrAi^- 



■lL.di 



f^f- /-'^- '^-r ^^ ^ hL .^ ^y^/_.- ..^^ 



'S^A-i^isJ ^-^"^ 






3 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



(>7 



with such a storm, as would make him 
tremble even in his grave. You may send 
to-morrow to the same place without fur- 
ther notice ; and if you have any thing of 
your own to communicate, I shall be glad 
to hear it. 

C. 



Sir. 



No. II. 

Nov, 8, 1769. 
I HAVE been out of town these 
three weeks, and, though I got your last, 
could not conveniently answer it. Be so 
good as to signify to A. B. C, either by 
word of mouth, or in your own hand, ' that 
his papers are received, and that I should 
have been ready to do him the service he 
desires ; but at present it would be quite 
useless to the parties, and might offend 
some persons who must not be offended.' 
As to Mr Mortimer,! only make him some 
civil excuse. 

I should be much obliged to you, if you 
would reprint (and in the front page, if 
not improper or inconvenient) a letter in 
the London Evening Post of last night, to 
the duke of Grafton.2 If it had not been 
anticipated, I should have touched upon 
the subject myself. However, it is not ill 
done, and it is very material that it should 
spread. The person alluded to is lord 
Denbigh. I should think you might ven- 
ture him with a D. As it stands few people 
can guess who is meant. The only thing 
that hinders my pushing the subject of my 
last letter, is really the fear of ruining that 
poor devil Gansel, and those other block- 
heads. — But as soon as a good subject 
offers. — ^Your types really wanted mending. 
C. 

No. 12. 
Sir, Nov. 12, 1769. 

I RETURN you the letters you sent 
me yesterday. A man who can neither 

^ Mr Mortimer was either at this time, or 
shortly afterwards, employed by Mr Woodfall to 
procure intelligence for the Public Advertiser. 

^ See Miscellaneous Letters, No. LXI. 



write common English, nor spell, is hardly 
worth attending to. It is probably a trap 
for me. I should be glad, however, to 
know what the fool means. If he writes 
again, open his letter, and if it contains any 
thing worth my knowing, send it : other- 
wise not. Instead of C. in the usual place, 
say only A Letter when you have occasion 
to write to me again. — I shall understand 
you. 

No. 13. 

Thursday, Nov. 16, 1769. 
As I do not chuse to answer for 
any body's sins but my own, I must desire 
you to say to-morrow, ' We can assure the 
Pubhc that the letter, signed A. B., relative 
to the duke of Rutland, is not written by 
the author of Junius.' 3 

I sometimes change my signature, but 
could have no reason to change the paper, 
especially for one that does not circulate 
half so much as yours. 

c. 

For the future, open all letters to me, 
and don't send them, unless of importance, 
— I can give you hght about Veridicus.* 



No. 14. 

Sunday, Dec. 10, 1769. 
I WOULD wish the paper (No. 2.) 
might be advertised for Tuesday.^ 

By way of intelligence you may inform 

the pubUc that Mr De La Fontaine, for 

his secret services in the Alley, is appointed 

Barrack-master to the Savoy. 

I hope A. B. C. has got his papers again. 



No. 15. 

Dec. 12, 1769. 
You may tell Mr A. B. C. that I 
did not receive his letter till last night, and 



Sir, 



3 Sec Miscellaneous Letters, No. LXI., and 
the first note appended to it. 

•+ See note to Private Letter, No. 6. 

S The paper here referred to is the letter of 
Junius, No. XXXIV. The ensuing intelligence 
was published verbally in the Pubhc Advertiser 
of the next day, Dec. 11. 



68 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



have not had time to look into the paper 
annexed. I cannot at present understand 
what use I can make of it. It certainly 
shall not be an ungenerous one to him. If 
he or his counsel kjiow how to act, I have 
saved him already, and really without in- 
tending it. — The facts are all literally true. 
Mr Hine's place is customer at the port of 
Exeter. Colonel Burgoyne received ;,^40oo 
for it. To mend the matter, the money 
was raised by contribution, and the sub- 
scribers quartered upon Mr Hine. Among 
the rest, one doctor Brook, a physician at 
Exeter, has ;^ioo a year out of the salary. 
I think you might give these particulars in 
your own way to the public. ^ As to your- 
self, I am convinced the ministry will not 
venture to attack you. They dare not sub- 
mit to such an enquiry. If they do, show 
no fear, but tell them plainly you will 
justify, and subpoena Mr Hine, Burgoyne, 
and Bradshaw of the Treasury — that will 
silence them at once. — As to the House of 
Commons there may be more danger. 
But even there I am fully satisfied the min- 
istry will exert themselves to quash such an 
enquiry, and on the other side, you will 
have friends : — but they have been so grossly 
abused on all sides, that they will hardly 
begin with you. 

Tell A. B. C. his paper shall be returned. 
I am now meditating a capital, and I hope 
a final piece ; — you shall hear of it shortly.^ 



No. i6. 

Dec, 19, 1769. 
For material affection for God's 
sake read maternal ; it is in the sixth para- 
graph. 3 The rest is excellently done. 

^ The facts were given to the public by Junius 
himself, in Letter XXXIV., and are indeed 
touched upon more than once in his subsequent 
letters. 

^ He refers to the Letter to the King, No. 
XXXV. 

3 Letter to the King, No. XXXV. 

4 This paper is supposed to have been totally- 
suppressed, the alterations introduced into it 
not having perhaps satisfied the printer of his 
safety in publishing it, as the signal of a private 
communication from him to the author appeared 
in the P. A. of the next day. 



No. .17. 

Sir, Dec. 26, 1769. 

With the enclosed alterations I 
should think our paper might appear.'* As 
to embowelling, do whatever you think 
proper, provided you leave it intelligible to 
vulgar capacities ; but would not it be the 
shortest way at once to print it, in an anon- 
ymous pamphlet? judge for yourself. I 
enter sincerely into the anxiety of your 
situation. At the same time I am strongly 
inclined to think that you will not be called 
upon. 5 They cannot do it without subject- 
ing Hine's affair to an enquiry, which would 
be worse than death to the minister. As it 
is, they are more seriously stabbed with this 
last stroke than all the rest.— At any rate, 
stand firm — (I mean with all the humble 
appearances of contrition) — if you trim or 
faulter, you will lose friends without gaining 
others. A. B. C. has done right in pub- 
lishing his letter. It defends him more 
effectually than all his nonsense. — I believe 
I shall give him a lift, for I really think he 
has been punished infinitely beyond his 
merits. -I doubt much whether I shall ever 
have the pleasure of knowing you ; but if 
things take the turn I expect, you shall 
know me by my works. 

C. 

No. 18. 

(Private) 
Sir, yan, 12, 1770. 

I DESIRED A. B. C. not to write 
to me until I ' gave him notice. He must 
therefore blame himself, if the detention of 
his papers has been inconvenient to him. 
Pray tell him this, and that he shall have 
them in a day or two. I shall also keep 
my promise to him,^ but to do it imme- 

5 The printer was threatened by the minister 
with a prosecution for publishing the letter of 
Junius, No, XXXIII., and the Court of King's 
Bench was actually moved on his behalf; but, 
probably for the reason mentioned above, the 
threat was never executed. 

6 See Letters XXXIII. and XXXVI., for 
an explanation of the fact and papers here re- 
ferred to. 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



69 



diately would be useless to him, and un- 
advisable with respect to myself. I believe 
you may banish your fears. The informa- 
tion 1 will only be for a misdemeanour, and 
I am advised that no jury, especially in 
these times, will find it. I suspect the 
channel, through which you have your in- 
telligence. It will be carried on coldly. 
You must not write to me again, but be 
assured I will never desert you. I received 
your letters regularly, but it was impossible 
to answer them sooner. You shall hear 
from me again shortly. 



No. 19. 

(Private) 
Sir, Beginning of Feb. 1770. 

When you consider to what ex- 
cessive enmities I may be exposed, you will 
not wonder at my caution. I really have not 
known how to procure your last. If it be 
not of any great moment I would wish you 
to recall it. If it be, give me a hint. If 
your affair should come to a trial, 2 and you 
should be found guilty, you will then let 
me know what expense falls particularly 
on yourself ; for I understand you are en- 
gaged with other proprietors. Some way 
or other you shall be reimbursed. But 
seriously and bona fide, I think it is im- 
possible. 



No. 20. 

About Feb. 14, 1770. 
I HAVE carefully perused the in- 
formation.s It is so loose and ill-drawn, 
that I am persuaded Mr De Grey could not 
have had a hand in it. Their inserting the 
whole, proves they had no strong passages 
to fix on. I still think it will not be tried. 
If it should, it is not possible for a jury to 
find you guilty. 



^ The information was for publishing the 
Letter to the King, No. XXXV., for the par- 
ticulars of which see the author's Preface, and 
note appended to it, p. 117. 

^ The trial referred to is stated more fully in 
another part of this publication, and alludes to 
an information filed by the Attorney-General, in 
consequence of the printer's having published 
the letter of Junius to the King, No. XXXV, 
The copy of the information was procured in 
Hilary term, 1770, and the trial took place at 
Guildhall, June 13th following. The costs to 
the printer in defending himself, though ultim- 
ately successful, amounted to about A0I20, a 
somewhat heavy fine for a person not found 
guilty, 

3 The information here referred to, is that 
noticed in the note to the preceding letter. 

4 The letter referred to is XXXVII. 

5 Agreed upon at a general meeting of the 
electors of the city and Hberty of Westminster, 
assembled in Westminster Hall, March 28, 1770, 



No. 21. 
Saturday, March, 17, 1770. 
To-morrow before twelve you 
shall have a Junius, it will be absolutely 
necessary that it should be published on 
Monday. 

Would it be possible to give notice of it 
to-night or to-morrow, by a dispersing a 
few hand-bills? Pray do whatever you 
think will answer this purpose best, for now 
is the crisis.^ 

C. 

No. 22. 

Sunday, March 18, 1770. 
This letter is written wide, and I. 
suppose will not fill two columns. For God's 
sake let it appear to-morrow, I hope you 
received my note of yesterday. 

Lord Chatham is determined to go to the 
Hall to support the Westminster remon- 
strance. ^ I have no doubt that we shall 
conquer them at last, 

C, 



in consequence of their petition to his Majesty, 
requesting him to dissolve the Parliament which 
had expelled Mr Wilkes, having been rejected. 
The following is a copy of the remonstrance : — 

' The humble address, remonstrance, and petition 
of the electors of the city and liberty of West- 
minster, assembled in Westminster Hall the 
28th day of March, 1770. 

'We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal 
subjects, the electors of the city and liberty of 
Westminster, having already presented our 
humble, but ineffectual, application to the throne, 
find ourselves, by the misconduct of your 
Majesty's ministers, in confederacy with many 
of our representatives, reduced to the necessity 
of again breaking in by our complaints upon your 



70 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



No. 23. 

(Private) 

Friday Morn. Oct. 19, 1770. 

By your afifected silence, 1 you 
encourage an idle opinion that I am the 

Majesty's repose, or of acquiescing under griev- 
ances so NEW and so exorbitant, that none 
but those who patiently submit to them, can 
deserve to suffer them. 

* By the same secret ^■a.^ 7mhappy influence to 
which all our grievances have been originally 
owing, the redress of those grievances has been 
now prevented ; and the grievances themselves 
have been repeatedly confirmed ; with this ad- 
ditional circumstance of aggravation, that while 
the invaders of our rights remain the directors 
of your Majesty's councils, the defenders of 
those rights have been dismissed from your Ma- 
jesty's service — your Majesty having been ad- 
vised by your ministers to remove from his 
employment for his vote in Parliament, the 
highest officer of the law ; because his principles 
suited ill with theirs, and his pure distribution of 
justice with their corrupt administration of it in 
the House of Commons. 

* We beg leave, therefore, again to represent 
to your Majesty^ that the House of Commons 
have struck at the most valuable liberties and 
franchises of all the electors of Great Britain ; 
and by assuming to themselves a right of chus- 
ing, instead of receiving a member when chosen, 
by transferring to the representative what be- 
longed to the constituent, they have taken off 
from the dignity, and, we fear, impaired the 
authority of Pp.rhament itself. 

* We presume again therefore humbly to im- 
plore from your Majesty, the only remedies which 
are any way proportioned to the nature of the 
evil : that you would be graciously pleased to 
dismiss for ever from your councils, those min- 
isters who are ill-suited by their dispositions to 
preserve the principles of a free, or by their 
capacities to direct the councils of a great and 
mighty kingdom ; and that by speedily dissolv- 
ing the present Parliament, your Majesty will 
show, by your own example, and by their dis- 
solution, that the rights of your people are to be 
inviolable, and that yoju will never necessitate so 
many injured, and, by such treatment, exasper- 
ated subjects to continue to commit the care of 
their interests to those from whom they must 
withdraw their confidence ; to repose their in- 
valuable privileges in the hands of those who 
have sacrificed |them ; and their trust in those 
who have betrayed it. 

' Your subjects look up with satisfaction to the 
powers which the constitution has vested in your 
Majesty — for it is upon them that they have 
placed their last dependance, and they trust, that 
the right of dissolving Parliaments, which has, 
under former princes, so often answered the pur- 
poses of power, may under your Majesty prove 
an happy instrument of liberty. 



author of the Whig,"^ &c., though you very 
w^U know the contrary. I neither admire 
the writer nor his idol. I hope you will 
soon set this matter right. 

C. 



' We find ourselves compelled to urge with 
the greater importunity, this our humble but 
earnest application to the throne, as every day 
seems to produce the confirmation of some old, 
or to threaten the introduction of some new 
injury. — We have the strongest reason to appre- 
hend that the usurpation begun by the House of 
Commons upon the right of electing, may be ex- 
tended to the right of petitioning ; and that under 
the pretence of restraining the abuse of this right, 
it is meant to bring into disrepute, and to intimi- 
date us from the exercise of the right itself. 

' But whatever may be the purposes of others, 
your Majesty hath, in your answer to the city of 
London, most graciously declared, that you are 
always ready to receive the requests, a7id to listen 
to the' complai7tts of your subjects. Your Ma- 
jesty condescends likewise to esteem it a dtity to 
sectire to them the free enjoytnent of those rights 
which yo7ir family were called to defend. 

'We rely, therefore, upon the Royal word 
thus given, that our grievances will meet with 
full redress, and our complaints with the most 
favourable interpretation — that your Majesty will 
never consider the arraignmentof your ministers 
as a disrespect to your person ; a charge confined, 
by the very terms of it, to this House of Com- 
mons, as injurious to Parliament at large (the 
constitution of which we admire, and the abuse 
of which is the very thing we lament) ; or a re- 
quest for the dissolution of Parliament, which 
your subjects have a right to make, and your 
Majesty to grant, as irreconcileable to the prin- 
ciples of the constitutiofi.'' 

^ ' The printer really did not affect a silence 
on a CERTAIN OCCASION, with a view of encour- 
aging his readers or correspondents in an idle 
opinion : the motives for his conduct were, the 
fear of being thought impertinent by declaring 
(without direction) what he knew ; and the pro- 
bability of rendering himself liable to incur the 
displeasure of either of those who were pleased 
to favour him with their correspondence.' — An- 
swer to Correspondents, Oct. 25, 1770. 

^ This letter was printed in the Public Ad- 
vertiser under the signature of a Whig and an 
Englishman, Oct. 11, 1770, and refers chiefly to 
the American Stamp Act, and the opinion of lord 
Chatham, whom the author panegyrized in very 
warm terms. The same writer had already pub- 
lished several other letters in the same name : 
and the printer, in compliance with the request 
of Junius, gave the following notice : — 

' October 20. 
* The printer thinks it his duty to declare, that 
the Letters which have appeared in this paper 
under the signature of a Whig and an English- 
man, were not written by the author of those 
signed Junius.' 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



No. 24. 

Sir, Monday Evening, Nov. 12, 1770. 
The enclosed,! though begun 
within these few days, has been greatly 
laboured. It is very correctly copied, and 
I beg you will take care that it be literally 
printed as it stands. I don't think you run 
the least risque. We have got the rascal 
down, let us strangle him if it be possible. 
This paper should properly have appeared 
to-morrow, but 1 could not compass it, so 
let it be announced to-morrow, and printed 
Wednesday. If you should have any fears, 
I entreat you to send it early enough to 
Miller, to appear to-morrow night in the 
London Evening Post. In that case, you 
will oblige me by informing the Pubhc to- 
morrow, in your own paper, that a real 
Junius will appear at night in the Lon- 
don. — Miller, I am sure, will have no 
scruples. 

Lord Mansfield has thrown ministry into 
confusion, by suddenly resigning the office 
of Speaker of the House of Lords. 



No. 25. 

Wednesday Night, Nov, 21, 1770.2 
I SHALL be very glad to hear 
from your friend at Guildhall— You may, if 
you think proper, give my compUments to 
him, and tell him, if it be possible, I will 
make use of any materials he gives me. I 
will never rest till I have destroyed or ex- 
pelled that wretch, — I wish you joy of 
yesterday.— The fellow truckles already. 3 

C. 



* Letter XLI. Junius to the Right Hon. 
Lord Mansfield. 

^ On the outside of this note was written, * the 
enclosed strikes deeper than you may imagine. 
C The Letter here referred to, is printed in 
the Miscellaneous Collection, No. LXXVIIL, 
and is subscribed Testiaihis. 

3 In allusion to the unanimous judgment of the 
Court of King's Bench, on the verdict for printing 
the Letter to the King, given Nov. 20th, 1770 ; 
by which lord Mansfield lost his object, and the j 
printer was granted a new trial. I 

^ The paper here referred to, is Miscellaneous | 
Letter, No. LXXIX., signed Z'^wzV/rtw, and was ; 
printed as requested. 

5 The allusion is to a communication between 



No. 26. 

Friday, i o'clock, Dec, 7, 1770. 
I WISH it were possible for you to 
print the enclosed to-morrow.^ — Observe 
the Italics strictly where they are marked. 
Why don't I hear from Guildhall. — If he 
trifles with me, he shall hear of it.'' 

C. 

No. 27. 

SiK, Jamiary 2, 1771. 

I HAVE received your mysterious 
epistle. I dare say a letter may safely be 
left at the same place ; but you may change 
the direction to Mr John Fretly. You need 
not advertise it. 

Yours, 
C. 

No. 28. 

Jan. 16, 177T. 
You may assure the Public that a 
squadron of four ships of the line is ordered 
to be got ready with all possible expedition 
for the East Indies. It is to be commanded 
by Commodore Spry. Without regarding 
the language of ignorant or interested 
people, depend upon the assurance / give 
you, that every man in administration looks 
upon war as inevitable.^ 



No. 29. 

Thursday, Jan. 31, 1771. 
The paper is extremely well 



the writer and Mr Wilkes, which had been pro- 
mised by the latter, but had not been at this time 
received. 

6 Inserted In the Public Advertiser, January 
17, nearly in the same words. The predicted 
war, however, did not follow, but the prepara- 
tion was actually made in the full belief, on 
the part of the cabinet themselves, that they 
would be compelled to go to war, by the existing 
temper of the people, irritated by the dishonour- 
able negotiation concerning the Spanish seizure 
of Falkland Islands, and that they should be ac- 
cused of Indolence, and even cowardice, by the 
approaching Parliament. The session opened 
only four days afterwards, and the question of 
hostilities was so much upon a balance, that In 
the Lower House not fewer than 150 members 
divided against the minister, upon the address 
of thanks and approbation. 



72 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



printed, and has a great effect.i — It is of 
the utmost importance to the pubhc cause 
that the doors of the House of Lords 
should be opened on Tuesday next. Per- 
haps the following may help to shame them 
into it. 

We hear that the ministry intend to 
move for opening the doors of both Houses 
of Parliament on Tuesday next, in the 
usual manner, being desirous that the na- 
tion should be exactly informed of their 
whole conduct in the business of Falkland 
Island. 

(Next Day.) 

The nation' expect, that on Tuesday next 
at least, both Houses will be open as usual ; 
otherwise there will be too much reason to 
suspect, that the proceedings of the ministry 
have been such as will not bear a public 
discussion. 

We hear that the ministry intend to 
move, that no gentleman may be refused 
admittance into either House on Tuesday 
next. Lord North in particular thinks it 
touches his character, to have no part of 
his conduct concealed from the nation. 

The resolution of the ministry to move 
for opening both Houses on Tuesday next 
does them great honour. If they were to do 
otherwise, it would raise and justify sus- 
picions very disadvantageous to their own 
reputation, and to the king's honour. 

Pray keep it up. C. 



No. 30. 

Sir, Tuesday Noon, Feb. 5, 1771. 

I DID not receive your letter 



* It refers to Letter XLII. For the nature 
of the subject alluded to, see the Letter, and 
the notes subjoined to it ; as also Miscella- 
neous Letter, No. LXXXVIIL, and the note 
in explanation. 

^ In reference to a note from the Attorney- 
General for publishing Letter of Junius, No. 
XLII., but which was never farther proceeded 
upon. 

3 This note accompanied No. XC. of the Mis- 
cellaneous Letters. The printer had some 
scruples about publishing the whole of it ; and in 
the Public Advertiser of Feb. 20, gave the usual 
mark, ' A Letter,' that a private letter was in 
waiting upon this subject. In consequence of 



until this day. I shall be very glad to hear 
what you have to communicate. 

C. 
You need not advertise any notice. 



No. 31. 

(Private) 

Monday, Feb. 11, 1771. 
Our correspondence is attended 
with difficulties. Yet I should be glad to 
see the paper you mention. Let it be left 
to-morrow without farther notice. I am 
seriously of opinion that it will all end in 
smoke.2 c 

No. 32. 

Monday, Feb. 18, 1771. 
It you are not grown too minis- 
terial in your politics, I shall hope to see 
the enclosed announced to-morrow, and 
published on Wednesday.^ 



No. Z?>' 
Sir, Feb. 21, 1771. 

If will be very difficult, if not im- 
practicable, for me to get your note. I pre- 
sume it relates to Vindex.4 I leave it to you 

which the subsequent note was received, dated 
Feb. 21. 

4 The following is a copy of the letter which 
Mr WooJfall addressed to the author under the 
feigned name of Mr John Fretly, and directed it 
to him at the New Exchange Coffee House, in 
the Strand. 

'Sir, 

'To have deserved any portion of your 
good opinion, affords me no small degree of 
satisfaction— to preserve it shall be iny constant 
endeavour. Always willing to oblige you as much 
as lies in my power, I, with great avidity, open 
your letters ; and sometimes, without reading the 
contents, promise the publication. — Such is my 
present situation, and I hope you will not be 
offended at my declining to publish your letter, 
as I am convinced the subject of it must, if I 
was to insert it, render me liable to very severe 
reprehension. That I am not grown too minis- 
terial in my politics, every day's paper will, I 
hope, sufficiently evince ; though I rather hope 
some little regard to prudence will not by you be 
deemed squeamishness, or tend to lessen me in 
your opinion, as I shall ever think myself your 

' Much obliged humble Servant, 
' Feb. 19, 1771. ' Henry Sampson Woodfall. 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



73 



to alter or omit as you think proper ; — or 
burn it. — I think the argument about 
Gibraltar, 1 &c.. is too good to be lost. As 
to the satirical part, I must tell you (and 
with positive certainty), that our gracious 

is as callous as stockfish to every thing 

but the reproach of cowardice. That alone 
is able to set the humours afloat. After a 
paper of that kind he won't eat meat for a 
week. 2 

You may rely upon it, the ministry are 
sick of prosecutions. Those against Junius 
cost the Treasury above six thousand 
pounds, and after all they got nothing but 
disgrace. After the paper you have printed 
to-day (signed Brutus) 3 one would think 
you feared nothing. For my own part I 

' P. S. I shall wait your directions what to do 
with the paper in question, as I did not chuse to 
trust it under cover till I was further acquainted 
with your pleasure.' 

'■ For the explanation of this passage, see 
Miscellaneous Letter, No. XC, signed Vifidex. 

^ See p. 235, note ^ 

3 This letter was addressed to lord North, and 
as it is short, it is here transcribed, in proof that 
Junius was not severe in his opinion of it, nor 
singularly acrimonious in the phraseology origin- 
ally adopted by himself. 
TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD NORTH. 

Mv Lord, 

I never address your Lordship but I 
feel the utmost horror and indignation ; for I 
consider you as a man totally regardless of your 
own honour, and the welfare of your country. 

The severity of a writer cannot be supposed to 
gi\'e your Lordship anj"- uneasiness ; a minister, 
whose schemes extend only to the exigencies of 
a year, but little regards his present or future 
reputation ; yet it is a duty we owe to the public 
to trace out and expose .the villain wherever we 
can perceive him working up the ruin of his 
country. 

The choice of your friends is an eminent indi- 
cation of your abilities and the blackness of your 
heart. 

Nam quieting ; impiidicus, adtdter, ganeo, 
alea, inanu, ventre, bona patria, laceravit, qui- 
qtie alicfnini ces grajide co7iflavit, immediately 
flies into your arms, and reimburses himself with 
the plunder of his country. 

Such are the guardians of our liberties and 
law : such are the men to whom our constitution 
is entrusted : and cannot we then without any 
particular discernment, or any remarkable acute- 
ness of observation, trace out the origin of our 
present discontents ? 

It would be needless to follow you through 
that maze of villany, in which you have long 
delighted to wander ; I shall only attack those 



can very truly assure you that nothing would 
afflict me more than to have drawn you into 
a personal danger, because it admits of no 
recompence. A little expense is not to be 
regarded, and I hope these papers have re- 
imbursed you. I never will send you any 
thing that / think dangerous, but the 
risque^ is yours, and you must determine for 
yourself. 

C. 
All the above is private. 



No. 34. 

Friday Noon, April 19, 1771. 
I HOPE you will approve of an- 



measures which occur to our more immediate 
consideration. 

In what manner can you answer to your 
king for the scandalous prostitution of his crown 
and himself? 

In what manner can you answer to your 
country for the total disregard of its welfare and 
dignity ? 

After all these formidable preparations ; after 
all this expensive armament, you have made 
shift to patch up a temporary ignominious com- 
promise, at the trifling expense of about three 
millions, and the British honour. 

You imagine yourself sufficiently secured in the 
pursuit of your infamous intentions, and in the 
practice of every illegal and unconstitutional 
measure, by the countenance of the king. Rely 
not too much on that protection. His Majesty 
must not be suffered, through a blind and ridi- 
culous attachment to an individual, or through a 
filial obedience, which then becomes criminal, to 
ruin and subvert his infatuated kingdoms. 

Your late acquisition of lord Suftolk will not 
do you much honour ; he is of the same stamp 
with the rest of your adherents. His Lordship 
has given the world a very strong impression of 
his character, and the disposition of his heart, by 
deserting his principal, and the cause in which 
he originally embarked, and by betraying that 
friendship, which in the more early and virtuous 
time of his life he had contracted. His former 
part}^ need not regret the loss of him, for they are 
by his desertion disencumbered of a . 

But I will now leave you, my Lord, to that 
mature insensibility which is only to be acquired 
by a steady perseverance in infamy. 

Every principle of conscience you have long 
ago been hardy enough to discard. There has not 
been an action in the last two years of your life 
but what separately deserves imprisonment. 
The time may come ; and remember, my Lord, 
there is a very short period between a minister's 
imprisonment and his grave. Brutus. 

^ This peculiarity of spelling the word risk, is 
the author's. 



74 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



nouncingthe enclosed Junius to-morrow,i 
and publishing it on Monday. If, for any 
reasons that do not occur to me, you should 
think it unadviseable to print it as it stands, 
I must entreat the favour of you to transmit 
it to Bingley,^ and satisfy him that it is a 
real Junius, worth a North Briton Extra- 
ordinary. It will be impossible for me to 
have an opportunity of altering any part of 
it. 

I am, very truly, your friend, 

C. 

No. ss- 

Thursday, June 20, 1771. 
I AM strangely partial to the en- 
closed.' It is finished with the utmost care. 
If I find myself mistaken in my judgment 
of this paper, I positively will never write 
again. 

C. 
Let it be announced to-morrow, Junius 
to the duke of Grafton for Saturday. 

I think WDkes has closed well. I hope 
he will keep his resolution not to write any 
more.* 

No. 0^6. 

July 16, 1771. 
To prevent any unfair use being 
made of the enclosed, I entreat you to keep 
a copy of it. Then seal and deliver it to 



Mr Home. I presume you know where he 
is to be found.5 

C. 

No. 37. 

August 13, 1771. 
Pray make an erratum for ulti- 
mate in the paragraph about the duke of 
Grafton, it should be intimate. The rest 
is very correct.^ If Mr Home answers this 
letter handsomely and in point, he shall be 
my great Apollo. 



^ Letter XLIV., which was printed as re- 
quested. 

^ The printer of the North Briton. 

3 Letter XLIX.. to the duke of Grafton. 

^ In allusion to the dispute between Mr 
Wilkes and Mr Home, conducted with great 
acrimony, till the former resolved, as here ad- 
vised, not to answer after a definite period any- 
additional letters, in consequence of the total 
occupation of his time in his canvass for the office 
of Sheriff of London, for which he was then a 
candidate, and to which situation he ultimately 
succeeded. The following is the conclusion of 
the letter here spoken of, which was, of course, 
addressed to Mr Home. 

' Whether you proceed. Sir, to a thirteenth, or 
a thirtieth letter, is to me a matter of the most 
entire indifference. You will no longer have mc 
your correspondent. All the efforts of your 
malice and rancour cannot give me a moment's 
disquietude. They will only torment your own 
breast. I am wholly indifferent about your 
sentiments of me, happy in the favourable 



No. 38. 

Wednesday Noon, Sept. 25, 1771. 
The enclosed is of such import- 
ance, so very material, that it must be given 
to the public immediately.'' 

I will not advise ; — though I think you 
perfectly safe :— all I say is that / rely upon 
your care to have it printed either to-morrow 
in your own paper, or to-night in the Pac- 
quet. 

I have not been able to get yours from 
that place, but you shall hear from me 
soon. 

No. 39. 

About Nov. 5, 177 1. 
Your reasons are very just about 
printing the Preface, &c. It is your own 

opinion of many valuable friends, in the most 
honourable connexions, both public and private, 
and in the prospect of rendering myself eminently 
useful to my country. Formerly in exile, when 
I was urbe patriaqiie extorris, and torn from 
every sacred tie of friendship, I have moistened 
my bread with my tears. The rest of my life I 
hope to enjoy my morsel at home in peace and 
cheerfulness, among those I love and honour, far 
from the malignant eye of the false friend and 
the insidious hypocrite. 

' I am. Sir, 

' Your humble servant, 

' John Wilkes.' 

5 Note enclosing Junius's Letter to the Rev. 
Mr Home, No. LIZ. 

6 Letter LTV. This letter appeared on the 
13th of August, 1771, though in the author's 
edition it is by mistake dated the 15-th. 

7 The Letter referred to is No. LVIL, and was 
printed in the Public Advertiser, Saturday, Sept. 
28th, 1771. 



4u^ - -'^ ^- "-^^ 



(^/ j-omtrrrrH) 



J' MJjn^U} hludJh (run Au^,fJ^ (jltu.- U^J ftufflri/L 
'^ dfj lf-ll>d<^^ (lit fle^LPLyl/-Jjfjiy X'^ &^' l'-^^ ^-^'' 






./. 









H&jikn^ Ik 






d' tfm.'J <'■! Ltyfi^ Juc-^uta U- 



uA-THHr. 



cLh. 



a.lt,. 









1 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



75 



affair. Do whatever you think proper. I 
am convinced the book will sell, and I sup- 
pose will make two volumes, — the type 
might be one size larger than Wheble's.^ 
But of all this you are the best judge. I 
think you should give money to the waiters 
at that place to make them more attentive. ^ 
The notes should be in a smaller type. 

Pray find out, if you can, upon what day 
the late duke of Bedford was flogged on 
the course at Litchfield by Mr Heston 
Homphrey.3 

No. 40. 

Friday, Nov. 8, 177 1. 
The above to that Scotchman 
should be printed conspicuously to-mor- 
row.* At last I have concluded my great 
work, and I assure you with no small 
labour. I would have you begin to adver- 
tise immediately, and publish before the 
meeting of parliament. Let all my papers 
in defence of Junius be inserted.^ I shall 
now supply you very fast with copy and 
notes. The paper and type should at least 
be as good as Wheble's. You must correct 
the press yourself, but I should be glad to 

_ ^ The present respectable proprietor and pub- 
lisher of the Countj'- Chronicle, who took a con- 
spicuous part in the dispute with the House of 
Commons respecting the publication of their de- 
bates, for an account of which, see p. 471, note. 

^ A coffee-house at which letters, &c., were 
left for Junius. 

3 See Letter XXIII., p. 190, note. 

4 See Letter LXVI. 

5 The Letters signed Philo Junius: those 
numbered LXIII. and LXIV. and the extracts 
from the Letters to the Supporters of the Bill of 
Rights. 

6 Garrick had received a letter from Woodfall 
just before the above note of Junius was sent to 
the printer, in which Garrick was told, in confid- 
ence, that there were some doubts whether 
Junius would continue to write much longer. 
Garrick flew with the intelligence to Mr Ramus, 
one of the pages to the king, who immediately- 
conveyed it to his Majesty, at that time residing 
at Richmond, and from the peculiar sources of 
information that were open to this extraordinary- 
writer, Junius wasapprized of the whole trans- 
action on the ensuing morning, and wrote the 
above postscript, and the letter that follows it, 
in consequence. 

7 Mr Garrick had, before this period, been 
threatened for his supposed political bias to the 
court, as will appear from a charge which Mr 



see corrected proofs of the two first sheets. 
Show the Dedication and Preface to Mr 
Wilkes, and if he has any material objec- 
tion, let me know. I say material hec-a.usQ 
of the difficulty of getting your letters. 

C. 
(Secret) 
Beware of David Garrick. ^ He was sent 
to pump you, and went directly to Rich- 
mond to tell the king I should write no 
more. The Dedication must stand first. 



No. 41. 

TO MR DAVID GARRICK. 

Nov. 10, 1771. 
I AM very exactly informed of your 
impertinent inquiries, and of the informa- 
tion you so busily sent to Richmond, and 
with what triumph and exultation it was 
received. I knew every particular of it the 
next day.^-Now mark me, vagabond. — 
Keep to your pantomimes, or be assured 
you shall hear of it. Meddle no more, 
thou busy informer ! — It is in my power to 
make you curse the hour in which you 
dared to interfere with JUNIUS.^ 



Home brought forward against Mr Wilkes, 
during the personal altercation which took place 
between them in the months of May and June 
preceding the date of this letter, and which is 
more particularly noticed In the note to Letter 
LIL, p. 279. Mr Home's accusation is as fol- 
lows : — 

' Whilst Mr Wilkes was in the King's Bench, 
he sent a threatening message to Mr Garrick to 
forbid his playing the part of Hastings in the 
tragedy of Jafie Shore; on account of some 
lines in that play which Mr Wilkes thought ap- 
plicable to his own situation. Mr Garrick com- 
plained exceedingly of the cruelty of such an 
interdict, and wished to be permitted to proceed 
in his endeavours to please the public in the 
common course of his profession. The patriot 
was inexorable ; and Mr Garrick has not appear- 
ed in that character since. The Lord Chajtt- 
berlaitCs control by Act of Parliament over the 
pleasures of the public is exercised only over new 
plays.' 

To this charge Mr Wilkes replied as follows, 
offering several justly merited compliments to 
the hitherto unrivalled genius of Mr Garrick. 

'TO THE REV. MR HORNE. 
' Sir, Prince's Court, Thursday, June 6, 1771. 
' Your ninth Letter has relieved me not 
a little by taking me to the theatre, and recalling 



7^ 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



I would send the above to Garrick di- 
rectly, but that I would avoid having this 
hand too commonly seen. Oblige me, 
then, so much as to have it copied in any 
hand, and sent by the penny post, that is, 
if you dislike sending it in your own 
writing. — I must be more cautious than 
ever. I am sure I should not survive a dis- 
covery three days ; or, if I did, they would 
attaint me by bill. Change to the Somer- 
set Coffee-house, and let no mortal know the 
alteration. I am persuaded you are too 
honest a man to contribute in any way to 



to my delighted remembrance the amazing 
powers both of nature and art in the most won- 
derful genius that ever, trod the EngHsh, or per- 
haps any stage, for his rival, Roscius, had a 
great defect, erat perversissitiiis oculis. You say 
'whilst Mr Wilkes was in the King's Bench,' 
&c. The whole of this pompous tale is, that 
some warm friends of Mr Wilkes imagined that 
Mr Garrick acted the part of Hastings at that 
time in a manner very different from what he 
had usually done, and marked too strongly some 
particular passages, unfavourable to the generous 
principles, and to the friends, of freedom. They 
talked of expressing their disapprobation in the 
theatre, at the next representation of Jane Shore, 
and likewise in the public prints. Mr Wilkes 
therefore thought it prudent to state the case by 
two or three gentlemen to Mr Garrick himself, 
and said, he feared the part of Hastings might 
bring on many disagreeable consequences to the 
great actorhimselfas well as to Mr Wilkes and his 
connexions, if continued in the manner then 
stated. ■ Mr Garrick received the friendly admo- 
nition in the most friendly way, but declared that 
the gentlemen, who had given Mr Wilkes the 
account of his acting Hastings, had greatly mis- 
taken, that he had not made the least alteration 
in the usual manner of acting that part on ac- 
count of the political disputes of the times, but 
been solely guided by his own feelings : that he 
always had acted that part, and always should 
play it in the same manner, not however slavishly 
copying himself, but with all the variety which 
from time to time his genius might dictate, pre- 
serving still the cast and spirit of the original 
character. Nothing more passed on this subject 
between Mr Garrick and me, nor has that gen- 
tleman ever expressed the slightest displeasure 
against Mr Wilkes, or his friends ; so far has he 
been from complaifiing exceedingly of the cruelty 
of an interdict, which never existed. 

' Did It escape your memory, Sir, that one of 
the objections made at that time by my friends, 
was the peculiar emphasis Mr Garrick was said 
to give to the following lines of Hastings, which 
some thought applicable to your situation : — 

111 befall 
Such meddling priests, who kindle up confusion, 



my destruction. Act honourably by me, 
and at a proper time you shall know m.e. 

I think the second page, with the widest 
lines, looks best. What is your essential 
reason for the change ? ^ I send you some 
more sheets. — I think the paper is not 
so good as Wheile's, — but I may be mis- 
taken — the type is good. The aspersions 
thrown upon my letter to the Bill of 
Rights 2 should be refuted by publication. 

Prevail upon Mr Wilkes to let you have 
extracts of my second and third letters to 
him. It will make the book still more new. 



And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples: 
By heaven 'tis done in perfect spite to peace. 

" You say, ' I think with half his (Mr Garrick's) 
merit I should have had twice his courage." If 
you mean theatrical 77ierit, I can tell you of 
some parts, in which you would infinitely exceed 
our great English actor. I mean all those parts 
from Vf\{\ck\.—fugiufit Pudor, Verujnqtte, Fides- 
que. In quorum subeunt locum Fraudes, Do- 
lique, Insidiceque, &^c. di^c. Vou would act, and 
be lago with success. Mr Garrick has that in 
hiin, which must ever prevent his acting well in 
that character. You have that in you, which 
would make it easy and natural. Shylock too our 
Roscius must never attempt. The Christian 
priest of Brentford has no vain scruples to pre- 
vent his undertaking and being applauded in 
that part. He might then talk ol dying his black 
coat red %vith blood in an innocent way on the 
stage, which at Brentford inspired a savage 
horror. 

' The pleasing hours, which Mr Garrick gave 
me at the King's Bench, I have deducted from 
the injury of a long and cruel imprisonment, and 
I think of him as Cicero did of the great Roman 
Actor, cum artifex ejusrnodi sit, ut solus dignus 
videatur esse, qui in scena spectetur ; tum vir 
ejusvtodi est, ut solus digmis videatur, qui eo 
non accedat. 

* I am, &c., 

'JOHN WILKES.' 

^ In allusion to a specimen of the intended 
genuine edition of the Letters. 

^ In the correspondence which took place 
between Mr Wilkes and Junius, two of his 
letters related to the Bill of Rights Society, and 
were written in disapprobation of several of their 
measures. These letters were, in many respects, 
misrepresented to the public, and in his own 
opinion, purposely so by Mr Home. The ex- 
planatory extracts here referred to, were re-pub- 
lished at the close of the second volume of the 
genuine edition, and will be found at end of 
Letter LXIX. The letters are given at length 
in the private correspondence between Junius 
and Mr Wilkes, Nos. 66 and 70. 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



n 



I would see them before they are printed, 
but keep this last to yourself.! 



No. 42. 

Nov. II, 1771. 
Print the following as soon as 
you think proper, and at the head of your 
paper.2 

I sent you three sheets of copy last night. 
When you send to me, instead of the 
usual signal, say, Vindex shall be consider- 
ed, and keep the alteration a secret to every- 
body. 

No. 43. 

About Nov. 15, 1771. 
If you can find the date of the 
duke of Bedford's flogging, insert it in the 
note.3 I think it was soon after the West- 
minster election. — The Philos are not to be 
placed as notes, except where I mention it 
particularly. I have no doubt of what you 
say about David Garrick — so drop the note. 
The truth is, that in order to curry favour, 
he made himself a greater rascal than he 
was. Depend upon what I tell you ; — the 
king understood that he had found out the 
secret by his own cunning and activity. — 
As it is important to deter him from 
meddling, I desire you will tell him that I 
am aware of his practices, and will certainly 
be revenged, if he does not desist. An 
appeal to the public from Junius would 
destroy him. 

Let me know whether Mr Wilkes will 
give you the extracts.* 

I cannot proceed without answers to 
those seven queries. 

Think no more of Junius Americanus.^ — 



^ On the outside of this letter v/as written 
' private and particular.' 

^ Certain paragraphs relating to the marriage 
of the late duke of Cumberland, inserted in the 
Preliminary Essay, p. 12. 

3 See note to Letter XXIII., p. 190. 

■* Referred to in the last paragraph of No. 41. 

S Junius Americanus was a frequent writer in 
the Public Advertiser during the years 1769, 
1770, and 1771. His letters chiefly related, as his 
signature readily suggests, to the disputes of the 
cabinet with the American colonies ; and, in the 
course of his strictures, he attributed to Junius 



Let him reprint his letters himself. He 
acts most dishonourably, in suffering Ju- 
nius to be so traduced ; but this falsehood 
will all revert upon Home. In the mean 
time, I laugh at him. 

With submission I think it is not your 
interest to declare that I have done. 

As to yourself, I really think you are in 
no danger. You are not the object, and 
punishing you (unless it answered the pur- 
pose of stopping the press) would be no 
gratification to the king. If undesignedly 
I should send you anything you may think 
dangerous, judge for yourself, or take any 
opinion you think proper. You cannot 
offend or afflict me but by hazarding your 
own safety. They talk of farther informa- 
tions, but they will always hold that lan- 
guage i7i terror em. 

Don't always use the same signal — any 
absurd Latin verse will answer the purpose.^ 

Let me know about what time you may 
want more copy. 

Upon reflection, I think it absolutely 
necessary to send that note to D. G.,^ only 
say practices instead of impertine?it in- 
quiries. I think you have no measures to 
keep with a man who could betray a con- 
fidential letter, for so base a purpose as 
pleasing *********•*. 
Tell me how long it may be before you 
want more copy. — I want rest most severely, 
and am going to find it in the country for a 
few days. Cumbriensis ^ has taken greatly. 



No. 44. 

Nov. 27, 1771. 
The postscript to Titus must be 
omitted.^ — I did never question your under- 



doctrines, in relation to their dependence on the 
legislature of Great Britain, which he had never 
avowed, nor even inclined to. At this time there 
was some idea of publishing them collectively. 
They were written by a Dr Charles Lee, as may 
be seen by a reference to the private correspond- 
ence between Junius and Mr Wilkes, No. 69. 

6 See Preliminary Essay, p. 14. 

7 David Garrick. See No. 41. 

8 See Miscellaneous Letter, No. CII. It was 
printed in the Public Advertiser, Nov. 13, 1771, 
upon the marriage of the late duke of Cumber- 
land with Mrs Horton, the sister of col. Luttrell. 

* His postscript addressed to Titus was added 



78 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



standing. Far otherwise. The Latin word 
simplex conveys to me an amiable charac- 
ter, and never denotes folly. Though we 
may not be deficient in point of capacity, it 
is very possible that neither of us may be 
cunning enough for Mr Garrick. But with 
a sound heart, be assured you are better 
gifted, even for worldly happiness, than if 
you had been cursed with the abilities of a 
Mansfield. After long experience of the 
world, I affirm before God, I never knew a 
rogue who was not unhappy. 

Your account of my letter to the Bill of 
Rights astonishes me. I always thought 
the misrepresentation had been the work of 
Mr Horne.^ I will not trust myself with 
suspecting. The remedy is in my own 
hands, but, for Mr Wilkes's honour, I wish 
it to come freely and honourably from him- 
self. Pubhsh nothing of mine until I have 
seen it. In the mean time be assured, that 
nothing can be more express, than my de- 
claration against long parliaments. — Try 
Mr Wilkes once more. — Speak for me in a 
most friendly but firm tone. — That I will 
not submit to be any longer aspersed. — Be- 
tween ourselves let me recommend it to you 
to be much upon your guard with patriots. 
— I fear your friend Jerry Dyson will lose 
his Irish pension.'"' Say received. 

In page 25, it should be the instead of 



to his letter to sir Wm Draper of Feb. 21, 1769, 
Letter V. It engaged to give Titus a severe 
castigation for having written with some degree 
of acrimony on the same side as the Knight of 
the Bath. The engagement, however, was not 
fulfilled under his signature of Junius, and hence 
the propriety of omitting the postscript in ques- 
tion in his own edition. See further on this sub- 
ject, note to Letter IV., in which Titus's letter is 
inserted. 

^ He here admits that he was mistaken in the 
conjecture that Home had misrepresented the 
sentiments conveyed in his letters to the Bill of 
Rights Society. Yet as he published the same 
opinion in his own edition, which is reprinted in 
Letter LXIX., he must afterwards have had fresh 
grounds for re-accrediting it, while in the present 
letter he seems more than half to suspect Wilkes 
himself. 

^ He feared with reason. Jeremiah Dyson, 
Esq., was one of the lords of the admiralty, 
and in Feb. 1770, resigned his seat in favour of 
our late lamented foreign minister Mr Fox, 
upon an Irish pension of ;^isoo per annum for 
his own life, and that of his three sons. The 



your. 3 This is a woeful mistake ; — pray 
take care for the future — keep a page for 
errata. 

David Garrick has literally forced me to 
break my resolution of writing no more.'* 



No. 45. 

^^^- s. "^n^- 

These papers are all in their exact 
order. Take great care to keep them so. 
In a few days more I shall have sent you all 
the copy. You must then take care of it 
yourself, except that I must see proof sheets 
of the Dedication and Preface, and these, 
if at all, I must see before the end of next 
week. You shall have the extract to go 
into the second volume, it will be a short 
one. Scasvola, I see, is determined to 
make me an enemy to lord Camden.^ If 
it be not wilful malice, I beg you will signify 
to him, that when I originally mentioned 
lord Camden's declaration about the Corn 
Bill, it was without any view of discussing 
that doctrine, and only as an instance of a 
singular opinion maintained by a man of 
great learning and integrity. Such an in- 
stance was necessary to the plan of my let- 
ter. I think he has in effect injured the 
man whom he meant to defend. 

When you send the above-mentioned 
proof sheets, return my own copy with them. 

following is an account of the mode in which he 
lost it : 

' In a committee of supply of the House of 
Commons of Ireland, Nov. 25, 1771, after a long 
debate the question was put, and, on a division, 
it was carried against the pension, by a majority 
of one, the numbers being for it 105, against it 
106 ; on which the House immediately resolved, 
"That the pension granted to Jeremiah Dyson, 
Esq., and his three sons, is an unnecessary 
charge upon the establishment of Ireland, and 
ought not to be provided for." Ordered, " That 
the said pension be struck off the list of pension- 
ers upon the establishment of Ireland." For the 
late Mr Flood's speech upon this subject, see 
Preliminary Essay, p. 52. 

3 In the opening of Letter III., it was origin- 
ally printed in the genuine edition, ' Your de- 
fence,' &c. In the present edition the correction 
has been duly adopted. 

*• The letter alluded to is LXVII. 

5 For further particulars of this dispute, see 
Letter LX. 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



79 



No. 46. 

Dec. 10, 1771. 
The enclosed completes all the 
materials that I can give you. I have done 
my part. Take care you do yours. There 
are still two letters wanting, which / expect 
you will not fail to insert in their places. 
One is from Philo Junius to Scasvola about 
lord Camden, the other to a Friend of the 
People about pressing.^ They must be in 
the course of October. — I have no view but 
to serve you, and consequently have only to 
desire that the Dedication and Preface may 
be correct. Look to it. If you take it 
upon yourself, I will not forgive your suffer- 
ing it to be spoiled. I weigh every word ; 
and every alteration, in my eyes at least, is 
a blemish. 

I should not trouble you or myself about 
that blockhead Scaevola, but that his absurd 
fiction of my being lord Camden's enemy 
has done harm. — Every fool can do mis- 
chief ; therefore signify to him what I said. 



^ These two letters are numbered Philo Jtmius, 
LX. and LXII. 

^ The allusion is to a cause which was tried at 
the Summer Assizes for the County of Surry, in 
1771, Meares and Shepley against Ansell, for a 
trespass, in which his Lordship was supposed to 
have given a very partial charge in favour of the 
Defendant, who thereby obtained a verdict. 
The Plaintiffs, however, on the Michaelmas 
Term following, moved the Court of Common 
Pleas for a new trial, on the ground of the mis- 
direction of the judge. The judge was called 
upon for his report, which he could not make 
without sending to the Plaintiffs' attorney for his 
affidavit of the transaction. — He made his report 
at last, to which he subjoined that he was per- 
fectly satisfied with the verdict of the jury. — 
The Court of Common Pleas was clearly of 
opinion, that Lord Mansfield had acted contrary 
to every principle of evidence both in law and 
equity, in admitting Matthews and Hiscox to 
give parol evidence, contrary to a clear explicit 
agreement in writing, which they had attested — 
and asserted that, if such a practice was to ob- 
tain, it would go a great way towards subverting 
the Statute of Frauds and Perjuries, and would 
be a most dangerous inlet to perjury, and a 
means of rendering men's properties very pre- 
carious and insecure. The Court therefore set 
aside the verdict, and ordered a new trial ; and 
it appeared to the Court to be so gross a mis- 
direction, that it dispensed with the usual terms 
of payment of costs. Although lord Mansfield, 
in hi; direction to the jury, represented the tres- 



Garrick has certainly betrayed himself, 
probably ********, 
who makes it a rule to betray everybody 
that confides in him. That new disgrace 
of Mansfield is true :2 what do you mean 
by affirming that the Dowager is better? 
I tell you she suckles toads from morning 
till night. 2 I think I have now done my 
duty by you, so farewel. 



No. 47. 

Dec. 17, 1771. 
Make your mind easy about me. 
I believe you are an honest man, and I 
never am angry.'^ — Say to-morrow 'We are 
desired to inform Scasvola, that his private 
note was received with the most profound 
indifference and contempt.' ^ I see his de- 
sign. The duke of Grafton has been long 
labouring to detach Camden. This Scas- 
vola is the wretchedest of all fools, and 
dirty knave. 

Upon no account, nor for any reason 



passes as small and insignificant, and the action 
as litigious, the Court of Common Pleas said 
the trespasses were obstinate, wilful, and mali- 
cious. 

Mr Rowlinson, the Plaintiffs' attorney, felt so 
dissatisfied with the conduct of lord Mansfield 
upon the occasion, that in the same term a 
motion was made at his instigation, to have his 
name struck off the Rolls of the Court of King's 
Bench, which, as a motion of course, was ac- 
quiesced in, when he was immediately admitted 
into the Common Pleas. 

2 He refers to the following paragraph, which 
appeared in the Pubhc Advertiser, Dec. 6, 
1771 :— 

' We have the pleasure to assure the public, 
from the most undoubted authority, that the 
repeated accounts of her Royal Highness the 
Princess Dowager of Wales being very ill, and 
her life in great danger, are entirely false, such 
reports being only calculated to promote the 
shameful spirit of gambling, by insurance on 
lives.' The Princess Dowager was at this time 
afflicted with a cancer, and died on the 8th of 
January in the following year. 

'^ He had received a note from Mr Woodfall, 
vindicating himself from any improper motive in 
his communication to Mr Garrick, which has 
been already referred to. 

5 The information to Sccevola was duly com- 
municated in the Public Advertiser : and the 
flippancy of this writer's style, and the coquetry 
of his political attachments, fully merited the 
contempt here expressed for him. 



8o 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



whatsoever are you to write to me, until I 
give you notice. 

When the book is finished, let me have a 
set bound in vellum, gilt, and lettered 
Junius i. 2. as handsomely as you can — 
the edges gilt. Let the sheets be well dried 
before binding. — I must also have two sets 
in blue paper covers. This is all the fee I 
shall ever desire of you. I think you ought 
not to publish before the second week in 
January. 

The London Packet is not worth our 
notice. I suspect Garrick, and I would 
have you hint so to him. 



No. 48. 

6 January, 1772. 
I HAVE a thing to mention to you 
in great confidence. I expect your assist- 
ance, and rely upon your secrecy. 

There is a long paper ready for publica- 
tion, but which must not appear until the 
morning of the meedng of parliament, nor 
be announced in any shape whatsoever.^ 
Much depends upon its appearing unex- 
pectedly. If you receive it on the 8th or 
9th instant, can you in a day or two have ' 
it composed, and two proof sheets struck 
off and sent me ; and can you keep the 
press standing ready for the Public Adver- 
tiser of the 2ist, and can all this be done 
with such secrecy that none of your people 
shall know what is going forward, except 
the composer, and can you rely on his 
fidelity? Consider of it, and, if it be pos- 
sible, say YES, in your paper to-morrow. 

I think it will take four full columns at 
the least, but I undertake that it shall sell. 
— It is essential that I should have a proof 
sheet, and correct it myself. 

Let me know if the books are ready that 
I may tell you what to do with them. 



proofs, as you engaged to do, disappoints 
and distresses me extremely.2 . It is not 
merely to correct the press (though even 
that is of consequence), but for another 
most material furpose.^ This will be en- 
tirely defeated, if you do not let me have 
the two proofs on Monday morning. 

The paper itself, is, in my opinion, of the 
highest style of Junius, and cannot fail to 
sell. — My reason for not announcing it was 
that the party might have no time to con- 
cert his measures with the ministry. But, 
upon reflection, I think it may answer 
better (in order to excite attention) to ad- 
vertise it the day before, Junius to lord 
chief justice Mansfield to-morrow. 

Quoting from memory, I have made a 
mistake about Blackstone, where I say that 
he confines the power to the Court, and does 
7iot extend it to the Judges separately. 
Those fines must be omitted. — The rest is 
right. — If you have any regard for me, or 
for the cause, let nothing hinder your send- 
ing the proofs on Monday. 



No. 49. 

Saturday, January 11, 1772. 
Your failing to send me the 



' Letter to Lord Mansfield. Letter LXVIII. 
■^ Of Letter LXVIII. referred to in the pre- 
ceding letter. 



No. 50. 

January 16, 1772. 
I RETURN you the proof, with the 
errata, which you will be so good as to 
correct carefully. I have the greatest 
reason to be pleased with your care and 
attention, and wish it were in my power to 
render you some essential service.— An- 
nounce it on Monday. 



No. 51. 

(Private) 

Saturday, Jan. 18, 1772. 
The gentleman^ who transacts the 
conveyancing part of our correspondence 
tells me there was much difficulty last night. 
For this reason, and because it could be 
no way material for me to see a paper on 
Saturday which is to appear on Monday, I 



3 He seems to allude to a promise, or expect-, 
ation, of legal assistance from some friendly- 
quarter. 

* Of this gentleman nothing is known. , 



TO MR H. S. WOOD FALL. 



had resolved not to send for it. — ^Your hint 
of this morning, I suppose, relates to this.i 
— I am truly concerned to see that the pub- 
lication of the book is so long delayed. — It 
ought to have appeared before the meeting 
of parliament. — By no means would I have 
you insert this long letter, if it made more 
than the difference of two days in the pub- 
hcation. Beheve me the delay is a real in- 
jury to the cause. The letter to Isl.- may 
come into a new edition. 

]Mr Wilkes seems not to know that 
]Morris published that letter. ^ — I think you 
should set him right. 



No. 52. 

Januayy 25, 1772. 
Having nothing better to do, I 
propose to entertain myself and the public 
with torturing that * * * * * 
***** Barrington. He has just 
appointed a French broker his deputy, for no 
reason but his relation to Bradshaw.'* I hear 
from all quarters, that it is looked upon as 
a most impudent insult to the army. — Be 



^ ' JMutare )iecessarm7>i est.' Answer to cor- 
respondents, Jan. i8th, 1772. 

^ Letter LXVIII. 

3 Mr Robert Morris was a barrister, who took 
a very active part in the city disputes, and on the 
popular side, and was secretary to the Bill of 
Rights' Society. For a further account of him, 
see note to iliscellaneous Letter, No. XCIIL, 
p. 475. He occasionally wrote in the P. A. 
The publication of the letter alluded to, Wilkes 
had attributed to a Mr Cawdron. See Private 
Letter, No. 82. 

^ Mr Chamier, brother-in-law to Bradshaw, 
the duke of Grafton's private secretary, here, 
and elsewhere, so slightingly mentioned by 
Junius, is thus undervalued solely as a mode of 
attacking lord Barrington. He was not a mere 
broker in the Alley, preferred only for the 
chicanery which may be learned there. We are 
told by Sir John Hawkins, in his entertaining 
life of JoJuison, that Mr Chamier was selected 
by the sage as one of the original nine compos- 
ing his club at the Turk's Head in Gerard Street. 
'He was descended from a French refugee 
family. Having had a liberal education, his 
deportment and manner of transacting the busi- 
ness of a stock-broker, distinguished him greatly 
from most others of that calling. He was well 
skilled in the modern languages, particularly the 
Spanish, in the study whereof he took great 
delight. He had acquired such a fortune as 



careful not to have it known to come from 
me. Such an insignificant creature is not 
worth the generous rage of Junius. I am 
impatient for the book. 



No. SZ- 

Monday, Feb. 3, 1772. 

I CONFESS I do not see the use of 
the table of contents. I think it will be 
endless and answer no purpose ; — An index 
of proper names and materials would in my 
opinion be sufficient. — You may safely defy 
the malice of Mr Wheble.^ Whoever buys 
such a book will naturally prefer the Au- 
thor's Edition, and I think it will always 
be a book for sale. I really am in no hurry 
about that set. Purling, I hear, is to come 
in for Eastlow. — A sure proof of the con- 
nexion between him and government. ^ I 
would liave you open any thing that may 
be brought to you for me (except from Air 
Wilkes) — and not forward it unless it be 
material. 

That large roll contained a Pamphlet. 



enabled him, though young, to quit business, 
and become, what indeed he seemed by nature 
intended for, a gentleman. This club was insti- 
tuted in 1763. 

]\Ir DvER, upon his return from Germany, 
where he had been a commissary with the army, 
was allowed to become the tenth member. Per- 
haps it may not be unimportant to show that thus 
Mr Chamier was well known to Mr Burke and 
to Mr Dyer, at the time when Junius began to 
write, and was an esteemed member of the club, 
of which they were distinguished ornaments. 
The reader, even in a political work, may not be 
displeased to see the names recorded of men, who 
thus met for social objects, and among whom 
politics never intruded. 

Dr Johnson, Sir John Hawkins, 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, JMr Topham Beauclerk, 
Mr Edmund Burke, Bennet Langton, 

Christ. Nugent, M.D. Anthony Chamier, 

Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. Samuel Dyer. 

5 Wheble had already reprinted an imperfect 
edition of the Letters of Junius, but certainlj^ 
without any intention of injuring the original 
publisher of them. The word malice, as applied 
to Mr Wheble, merely meant rivalry. See 
Priv. Lett. No. 56. 

6 John Purling, Esq., one of the directors of the 
East India Company, who took a very active 
part in their affairs, at that period. 

6 



82 



PRIVATE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



No. ^4. 

Monday, Feb. 10, 1772. 
If you have any thing to commu- 
nicate, you may send it to the original place 
for once N.E.C. — and mention any new 
place you think proper, West of Temple 
Bar. The delay of the book spoils every 
thing. 

No. ^^. 

Monday Night, Feb. 17, 1772. 
Surely you have misjudged it 
very much about the book. I could not 
have conceived it possible that you could 
protract the publication so long. — At this 
time, particularly before Mr Sawbridge's 
motion, 1 it would have been of singular 
use. You have trifled too long with the 
public expectation. — At a certain point of 
time the appetite palls. — I fear you have 
already lost the season. — The book, I am 
sure, will lose the greatest part of the effect 
I expected from it. — But I have done. 



No. 56. 

About Feb. 22, 1772. 
I DO you the justice to believe 
that the delay has been unavoidable. The 
expedient you propose of printing the Dedi- 
cation and Preface in the P. A. is unad vis- 
able. The attention of the public would 
then be quite lost to the book itself. I think 
your rivals will be disappointed. Nobody 
will apply to them when they can be sup- 
plied at the fountain head. I hope you are 
too forward to have any room for that 
letter of Domitian,^ otherwise it is merely 
indifferent. The Latin I thought much 
superior to the English. — The intended 



^ In favour of triennial parliaments, as already 
noticed in a note to the Preliminary Disserta- 
tion. 

^ This letter, for the reason here stated, was 
not printed in the genuine edition. 

■^ The bill here spoken of is the Royal JMar- 
riage Act. 

4 In allusion to the partial and impolitic con- 
duct of Mr Nash, at this time lord mayor, upon 
the common questions of city politics brought 



bill, in consequence of the message, will 
be a most dangerous innovation in the in- 
ternal policy of this country. 3— What an 
abandoned prostituted idiot is your lord 
mayor.4 The shameful mismanagement 
which brought him into office, gave me the 
first and an unconquerable disgust. — All I 
can now say is make haste with the book. — 

C. 
The appointment of this broker " I am 
told gives universal disgust. That * * 
****** *' * * * c would 
never have taken a step apparently so ab^ 
surd, if there were not some wicked design 
in it, more than we are aware of. At any 
rate the broker should be run down. That 
at least is due to his master. 



No. 57. 

Saturday, 29, Feb. 1772. 
I AM very glad to see that the 
book will be out before Sawbridge's mo- 
tion. There is no occasion for a mark of 
admiration at the end of the motto. But it 
is of no moment whatsoever. When you 
see Mr W. pray return him my thanks for 
the trouble he has taken. I wish he had 
taken more.'' — I should be glad to have a 
set, sewed, left at the same place to-morrow 
evening. Let it be well sealed up. 



No. 58. 

Tuesday, March 3, 1772. 
Your letter was twice refused last 
night, and the waiter as often attempted to 
see the person who sent for it. — I was im- 
patient to see the book, and think I had a 
right to that attention a little before the 
general pubhcation.s When I desired to 
have two sets sewed, and one bound in 

before him, especially in refusing to call a com- 
mon hall, agreeably to a request very generally 
signified to hiia for this purpose. 

S Chamier. 6 Lord Barrington. 

7 Mr Wilkes, at the request of Junius, 
perused and revised the Dedication and Preface 
to the genuine edition of the letters. 

8 The genuine edition of the letters was pub- 
lished on the third of March, 1772. 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



vellum, it was not from a principle of cscon- 
omy. I despise such little savings, and 
shall still be a purchaser. — If I was to buy 
as many sets as I want, it would be re- 
marked. 

Pray let the two sets be well parcelled up 
and left at the bar of Munday's Coffee- 
house, Maiden Lane, with the same direc- 
tion, and with orders to be delivered to a 
chairman who will ask for them in the 
course of to-mon-ow evening. Farewel. 



No. 59. 

Thursday, March 5, 1772. 
Your letters with the books are 
come safe to hand. The difficulty of cor- 
responding arises from situation and neces- 
sity, to which we must submit. Be assured 
I will not give you more trouble than is 
unavoidable. — If the vellum books are not 
yet bound, I would wait for the index. If 
they are, let me know by a line in the P. A. 
— When they are ready, they may safely be 
left at the same place as last night. 

On your account I was alarmed at the 
price of the book. — But of the sale of books 
I am no judge, and can only pray for your 
success. — What you say about the profits ^ 
is very handsome. I like to deal with such 
men. As for myself, be assured that I am 
far above all pecuniary views, and no other 
person, I think, has any claim to share with 
you. Make the most of it therefore, and 
let all your views in life be directed to a 
solid, however moderate, independence. 
Without it no man can be happ}^, nor even 
honest. — 

If I saw any prospect of uniting the city 
once more, I would readily continue to 
labour in the vineyard. Whenever Mr 
Wilkes can tell me that such an union is in 
prospect, he shall hear of me. 

^ Woddfall made Junius an offer of half the 
profits of the book, or if he should decHne accept- 
ing them for himself, to give a sum of money 
equal to their amount, to any charity which he 
should chuse to name. 

^_ These errors are corrected in the present 
edition. 

3 A line in the printer's notice to correspond- 
ents, introduced as a signal that a letter, or 



Qubd si quis existimat me aut voluntate 
esse nmtatd, aut dehilitata virhiie, aut 
anivio fracto, vehementer errat. Farewel. 

In the Preface, p. 20, line 7, read unrea- 
sonable ; p. 26, line 18, read accuracy. 2 



No. 60. 

May 4, 1772. 
l¥ pars pro ioto ' be meant for me, 
I must beg the favour of you to recall it. 
At present it would be difficult for me to 
receive it.— When the books are ready, a 
Latin verse will be sufficient. 



No. 61. 

Sunday, May 3, 1772. 
I AM in no manner of hurry about 
the books. I hope the sale has answered. 
— I think it will always be a saleable book. 
The enclosed is fact, and I wish it could be 
printed to-morrow. It is not worth an- 
nouncing. The proceedings of this wretch 
are unaccountable. There must be some 
mystery in it which I hope will soon be dis- 
covered to his confusion. — Next to the duke 
of Grafton, I verily believe that the blackest 
heart in the kingdom belongs to lord Bar- 



No. 62. 

]\Iay 10, 1772. 
Pray let this be announced. Me- 
moirs of Lord Barrington in our next.^ 

Keep the author a secret. 



No. 60,. 

19, Jamiary 1773. 
I HAVE seen the signals thrown 
out for your old friend and correspondent. 



parcel, was in waiting for him at the usual place. 

''• This note accompanied the letter signed 
Scotus, addressed to his Lordship, and was 
printed as requested. See Miscellaneous Letters, 
No. CXL The Autograph is still in the hands of 
the proprietor of this edition. 

3 The annunciation under this title, appeared 
in the notice to coiTespondents, Public Ad- 
vertiser, May II, and the INIemoirs were printed 
in a letter bearing the signature of Ne77ies2s. May 
12. See JMiscellaneous Letter, No. CXIIL 



PRIVATE- LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Be assured that I have had good reason for 
not complying with them. In the present 
state of things, if I were to write again, I 
must be as silly as any of the horned cattle, 
that run mad through the city, or as any 
of your wise aldermen, I meant the cause 
and the public. Both are given up. I feel 
for the honour of this country, when I see 
that there are not ten men in it, who will 
unite and stand together upon any one 
question. But it is all alike, vile and con- 
temptible. 

You have never flinched that I know of ; 
and I shall always rejoice to hear of your 
prosperity. 

If you have any thing to communicate (of 
moment to yourself) you may use the last 
address, and give a hint.i 



No. 64. 



Sir, 



I HAVE troubled you with the 
perusal of two letters, as that of the prior 
date accounts for the delay of not sending 
the books sooner ; and this acquaints you 
that I did not get them out of the book- 
binder's hands till yesterday ; nor though I 
desired them to be finished in the most ele- 
gant manner possible, are they done so well 
as I wished. But, Sir, if the manner of the 
contents and index are not agreeable to you, 
they shall be done over again according to 
any directions you shall please to favour me 
with.— With respect to City politics, I fear 
the breach is too wide ever to be again 
closed, and even my friend Mr Wilkes lost 
some of his wonted coolness at the late 
election on Sawbridge, Oliver, &c., scratch- 
ing against him. 2 I hope you will believe 
that however agreeable to me it must be to 
be honoured with your correspondence, I 



^ This letter was thus noticed in the answer to 
correspondents in the P. A. March 8, 1773. 
'The letter from an old friend and corre- 
spondent, dated Jan. 19, came safe to hand, and 
his directions are strictly followed. Quod si qjiis 
existimat, aut, &'c.' 

'■^ Mr Wilkes and Mr Townshend were, after a 
sharp contest, returned to the court of aldermen 
for them to make their election of one of these 
gentlemen to the mayoralty for the year 1772, 



should never entertain the most distant wish 
that one ray of your splendour should be 
diminished by your continuing to write. — 
Mr Wilkes indeed mentioned to me the 
other day that he thought the East India 
Company a proper subject ; and asked if I 
could communicate anything to you, to 
which my reply was that I could not tell 
(as I did not know whether you might 
chuse to be intruded upon) . You will per- 
ceive by the papers that two persons have 
forced themselves upon us, who, without a 
tythe of Mr Wilkes's abihties, imagine the 
public will look up to them as their de- 
liverers ; but they are most egregiously 
mistaken, as every one who possesses a grain 
of common sense hold them in almost utter 
contempt. You will probably guess who I 
mean, and were I capable of drawing a 
parallel, I should borrow some part of it 
from Shakespeare's lago and Roderigo. 

Should it please the Almighty to spare 

your hfe till the next general election, and I 
should at that time exist, I shall hope you 
will deign to instruct me for whom I should 
give my vote, as my wish is to be repre- 
sented by the most honest and able, and I 
know there cannot be any one who is so fit 
to judge as yourself. I have no connexions 
to warp me, nor am I acquainted with but 
one person who would speak to me on the 
subject, and that gentleman is, I believe, a 
true friend to the real good of his country ; 
I mean Mr Glover, the author of Leonidas. 
As I thought Serjeant Glyn deserving of 
something more than the mere fees of his 
profession, for the pains he took upon my 
trial, I have made a purchase of a small 
freehold at Brentford by way of qualifica- 
tion, in order to convince him, if he should 
offer himself at the next election, whenever 
it should happen, that I hold his services in 



when their choice fell upon Mr Alderman Towns- 
hend, in consequence of Sawbridge and Oliver 
scratching against Wilkes. The candidates for 
that office, with the numbers which they polled, 
were as under : 

Mr Alderman Wilkes — 2301 

Townshend — 2278 

Hallifax — 2126 

Shakespeare — 1912 



TO MR H. S. WOODFALL. 



85 



grateful remembrance. But I am since in- 
formed that it is not his intention, and that 
lord Percy is to be joined with sir W. B. 
Proctor, who is to be supported by the 
duke of Northumberland's interest. — I 
have heard much of a most trimming letter 
from Mr Stewart to lord Mansfield on the 
Douglas cause, but cannot possibly get a 
copy, which probably would be a good 
letter to print. — 

If, Sir, you should not disapprove of the 



Contents and Index, I thought of advertis- 
ing them in the manner of the enclosed 
form., if I have your permission so to do, 
but not otherwise. — May I beg the favour 
of a hne in answer? Believe me. Sir, to be, 
with gratitude and respect, 

Your much obliged 
humble servant to command, 
Henry Sampson Woodfai-l. 

Sunday, March 7, 1773. 



PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 



BETWEEN 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



87 



No. 65. 

TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ. 

London, zist Augiist, 1771.^ 
I PRESUME, Sir, you are satisfied 
that I mean you well, and that it is not 
necessary to assure you that while you 
adhere to the resolution of depending only 
upon the public favour (which, if you have 
half the understanding I attribute to you, 
you never can depart from), you may rely 
upon my utmost assistance. Whatever 
imaginary views may be ascribed to the 
author, it must always make part of Ju- 
Nius's plan to support Mr Wilkes while he 
makes common cause with the people. I 
would engage your favourable attention to 
what I am going to say to you ; and I 
intreat you not to be too hasty in con- 
cluding, from the apparent tendency of this 
letter, to any possible interests or connex- 
ions of my own. It is a very common 
mistake in judgment, and a very danger- 
ous one in conduct, first to look for no- 
thing in the argument proposed to us, 
but the motive of the man who uses it, 
and then to measure the truth of his argu- 
ment by the motive we have assigned to 
him. Witli regard to me. Sir, any refine- 
ment in this way would assuredly mislead 
you ; and though I do not disclaim the 
idea of some personal views to future 
honour and advantage (you would not be- 
lieve me if I did*), yet I can truly affirm, 
that neither are they little in themselves, 
nor can they by any possible conjecture be 
collected from my writings. 

Mr Home, after doing much mischief, is 
now, I think, completely defeated and dis- 
armed. The author of the late unhappy 
divisions in the city is removed. — Why 
should we suffer his works to live after him ? 
In this view, I confess, I am vindictive, and 
would visit his sins upon his children. I 
would punish him in his oft'spring, by 
repairing the breaches he has made. — Con- 

^ On this letter is written, in Mr Wilkes's own 
hand, the following memorandum : 

' August 21, 1771. 
' Received on Wednesday noon by a chair- 



vinced that I am speaking to a man who 
has spirit enough to act if his judgment be 
satisfied, I will not scruple to declare at 
once, that Mr Sawbridge ought to be lord 
mayor, and that he ought to owe it to your 
first motion, and to the exertion of all your 
credit in the city. — I affirm, v/ithout a 
doubt, that pohtical prudence, the benefit 
of the cause, your public reputation and 
personal interest, do all equally demand 
this conduct of you. — I do not deny that a 
stroke like this is above the level of vulgar 
policy, or that if you were a much less con- 
siderable man than you are, it would not 
suit you. But you will recollect. Sir, that 
the public opinion of you rises every day, 
and that you must enlarge your plan as you 
proceed, since you have every day a new 
acquisition of credit to maintain. — I offer 
you the sincere opinion of a man, who, 
perhaps, has more leisure to make reflec- 
tions than you have, and who, though he 
stands clear of all business and intrigue, 
mixes sufficiently for the purpose of intelli- 
gence in the conversation of the world. 

Whatever language you in prudence 
assume to the pubUc, you cannot but be 
sensible that the separation of those gentle- 
men who withdrew from the Bill of Rights 
was of considerable disservice to you. It 
required, in my opinion, your utmost dex- 
terity and resolution, and not a little of 
your good fortune, to get the better of it. 
But are you now really upon the best ground 
on which Mr Wilkes might stand in the 
city? Will you say, that to separate Mr 
Sawbridge from a connexion every way hos- 
tile to you, and to secure him against the 
insidious arts of Mr Home, and the fury pf 
Mr Townshend (if it could be done with- 
out embarrassing your leading measures, 
and much more if it promoted them), would 
not give you a considerable personal gratifi- 
cation ? — Will you say, that a public declar- 
ation of Mr Sawbridge in your favour, and 
the appearance of your acting together (I 
do not speak at present of a hearty coa- 

man, who said he brought it from a gentleman 
whom he saw in Lancaster Court, in the Strand. 

'j. w.' 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



lition or confidence) would not contribute 
to give you a mere secure, a more per- 
manent, and, without offence to any man, 
a more honourable hold upon the city 
than you have at present ? What sensations 
do you conceive a union between you and 
Mr Sawbridge would excite in the breast of 
Mr Home ? Would it not amount to a de- 
cisive refutation of all the invidious argu- 
ments he has drawn from your being de- 
serted by so many of the considerable 
figures of the party ? The answer to. these 
questions is too obvious to be mistaken. 
But you will say to yourself what you would 
not confess to Junius. — ' Mr Sawbridge is 
a man of unquestionable probity, and the 
concurrence of his reputation would un- 
doubtedly be of service to me ; but he has 
not pliancy enough to yield to persuasion, 
and I, Wilkes, am determined not to suffer 
another to reap the harvest of my labours : 
that is, to take the lead of me in the city.' — 
Sir, I do not mean or expect that you 
should make such a sacrifice to any man. 
But besides difference in point of conduct 
between leading and going foremost, I 
answer your thoughts when I say, that 
although Mr Sawbridge is not to be directed 
(and even this perhaps is not so literally and 
completely true as he himself imagines), on 
the other hand he does not mean to direct. 
His disposition, as you well know, is not 
fitted for that active management and 
intrigue which acquire an operating popu- 
larity, and direct the people by their pas- 
sions. I attribute to you both the most 
honourable intentions for the public, but 
you travel different roads, and never can be 
rivals. — It is not that Mr Sawbridge does 
not wish to be popular ; but, if I am not 
greatly mistaken, his virtues have not osten- 
tation enough for the ordinary uses of 
party, and that they lead rather to the 
esteem of individuals than to popular opin- 
ion. — This I conceive is exactly the man 
you want — you cannot always support a 
ferment in the minds of men. There will 
necessarily be moments of languor and 
fatigue ; and upon these occasions Mr 
Sawbridge' s reputed firnmess and integrity 



may be a capital resource to you,— you 
have too much sagacity not to perceive how 
far this reasoning might be carried. 

In the very outset, you reap a consider- 
able advantage, either from his acceptance 
or refusal. — What a copious subject of 
ostentation !— what rich colours to the pub- 
lic ! Your zeal to restore tranquillity to the 
city ;— the sacrifice of all personal recollec- 
tions in favour of a man whose general 
character you esteem ; — the public good 
preferred to every private or interested con- 
sideration, with a long et ccBtera to your own 
advantage. — Yet I do not mean to persuade 
you to so simple a part as that of con- 
tributing to gratify Mr Sawbridge, without 
a reciprocal assurance from him, that upon 
fair and honourable occasions he will in re- 
turn promote your advantage. — Your own 
judgment will easily suggest to you such 
terms of acknowledgment as may be bind- 
ing upon him in point of gratitude, and 
not offensive to his delicacy. — I have not 
entered into the consideration of any objec- 
tions drawn from the fertile field of provo- 
cation and resentment. — Common men are 
influenced by common motives ; — but you, 
Sir, who pretend to lead the people, must 
act upon higher principles. To make our 
passions subservient to you, you must 
command your own. The man who, for 
any personal indulgence whatsoever, can 
sacrifice a great purpose to a little one, is 
not qualified for the management of great 
affairs. — 

Let me suppose then that every material 
difficulty on your part is removed ; and, 
that, as far as you alone are concerned, 
you would be ready to adopt the plan I 
propose to you. 

If you are a man of honour you will still 
have a powerful objection to oppose to me. 
Admitting the apparent advantage to your 
own purposes, and to the cause you are en- 
gaged in, you will tell me ' that you are no 
longer at hberty to chuse ; — that the deser- 
tion of those persons who once professed a 
warm attachment to you, has reduced you 
to a situation in which you cannot do that 
which is absolutely best ; — that Mr Crosby 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



has deserved everything from you and from 
the city, and that you stand engaged to 
contribute your whole strength to continue 
him another year in the mayoralty.' — My 
reply to this very just objection is addressed 
rather to Mr Crosby than to Mr Wilkes. 
He ought at all events to be satisfied ; and 
if I cannot bring him over to my opinion, 
there is an end of the argument ; for I do 
agree with you most heartily, that it is as 
gross a breach of policy as of morals, to 
sacrifice the man who has deserved well of 
us to any temporary benefit w-hatsoever. 
Far from meaning to separate you from 
Mr Crosby, it is essential to the measure I 
recommend, that it should be your joint 
act. Nay, it is he who in the first instance 
should open the communication with Mr 
Sawbridge ; nor is it possible for you to 
gain any credit by the measure in which he 
will not of necessity be a considerable sharer. 
But now for considerations which imme- 
diately affect Mr Crosby. 

Your plan, as I am informed, is to en- 
gage the livery to return him with Mr 
Bridgen. — In my own opinion the court of 
aldermen will choose Bridgen, consequently 
the sacrifice I require of Mr Crosby would 
in effect be nothing. That he will be de- 
feated is to my judgment inevitable. It is 
for him to consider whether the idea of a 
defeat be not always attended with some 
loss of reputation. In that case too he will 
have forced upon the citizens (whom he 
professes to love and respect) a magistrate, 
upon whose odious and contemptible cha- 
racter he at present founds his only hopes 
of success. — Do you think that the city will 
not once in the course of a twelvemonth be 
sensible of the displeasure you have done 
them? — Or that it will not be placed in 
strong terms to your account. I appeal to 
Miss Wilkes, whose judgment I hear high- 
ly commended, — would she think herself 
much indebted to her favourite admirer, if 
he forced a most disagreeable partner upon 
her for a long winter's night, because he 
could not dance with her himself ? 

You will now say ; — ' Sir, we understand 
the politics of the city better than you do, 



and are well assured that Mr Crosby will be 
chosen lord mayor ; — otherwise w^e allow 
that upon your plan he might acquire credit 
without forfeiting any real advantage.' 
Upon this ground I expect you, for I con- 
fess it is incumbent upon me to meet your 
argument, where it lies strongest against 
me. — Taking 'it for granted, then, that Mr 
Crosby may be lord mayor, I affirm that it is 
not his interest, because it is not his great- 
est interest. The httle profit of the salary 
cannot possibly be in contemplation with 
him. — I do not doubt that he would rather 
make it an expensive office to himself. His 
view^ must be directed then to the flattering 
distinction of succeeding to a second mayor- 
alty, and, what is still more honourable, to 
the being thought worthy of it by his fellows- 
citizens. — Placing this advantage in its 
strongest light, I say that every purpose of 
distinction is as completely answered by his 
being known to have had the employment 
in his power (which may be well insisted 
upon in argument, and never can be dis- 
proved by the fact) as by his accepting it. 
To this I add the signal credit he will 
acquire with every honest man by renounc- 
ing, upon motives of the clearest and most 
disinterested public spirit, a personal hon- 
our, which you may fairly tell the world 
was unquestionably within his reach.— But 
these are trifles. — I assert that by now ac- 
cepting the mayoralty (which he may take 
hereafter whenever he pleases) he precludes 
himself from soliciting, with any colour of 
decency, a real and solid rew^ard from the 
city. — I mean that he should be returned 
for London in the next Parliament. I 
think his conduct entitles him to it, and 
that he cannot fail of succeeding, if he does 
not furnish his opponents with too just a 
pretence for saying that the city have al- 
ready rewarded him. On the contrary, with 
what force and truth may he tell his fellow- 
citizens at the next election, ' for your sakes 
I rehnquished the honour you intended me. 
The common good required it. But I did 
not mean to renounce my hopes that upon 
a proper occasion you would honour me 
with a public mark of your approbation.' 



90 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



You see I do not insist upon the good 
effects of Mr Sawbridge's gratitude, yet I 
am sure it may be depended upon. I do 
not say that he is a man to go all lengths 
with Mr Wilkes ; but you may he assured 
that it is not danger that will deter him, 
and that wherever you liave the voice of 
the people with you, he will, upon princi- 
ple, support their choice at the hazard of 
his life and fortune. 

Now, Sir, supposing all objections are re- 
moved, and that you and Mr Crosby are 
agreed, the question is in what manner is 
the business to be opened to Mr Sawbridge. 
Upon this point too I shall offer you my 
opinion, because the plan of this letter 
would not otherwise be complete. — At the 
same time I do very unaffectedly submit 
myself to your judgment. 

I would have my lord mayor begin by de- 
siring a private interview between him, Mr 
Crosby,- and yourself. Very little preface 
will be necessary. You have a m.an to deal 
with who is too honourable to take an un- 
fair advantage of you. With such a man 
you gain everything by frankness and can- 
dour, and hazard nothing by the confidence 
you repose in him. — Notwithstanding any 
passages in this letter, I would show him 
the whole of it ; in a great business there 
is nothing so fatal as cunning management; 
— and I would tell him it contained the plan 
upon which Mr Crosby and you were de- 
sirous to act, provided he would engage to 
concur in it boiiafide, so far forth as he was 
concerned. There is one condition, I own, 
which appears to me a sine qjid iioii ; and 
yet I do not see how it can be proposed in 
terms, unless his own good sense suggests 

^ Mr Crosby was, at the date of this letter, 
lord mayor, and the author has here, obviously 
through mistake, substituted his name for that of 
Mr Sawbridge. 

^ The plan recommended by Junius in the 
above letter was not acted upon by Mr Wilkes, for 
the reasons assigned by him in his letter of Sept. 
12, 1771 (No. 67). The consequence was, that Mr 
Alderman Nash, the ministerial candidate, was 
elected lord mayor, to the infinite mortification 
of Junius, who, in Private Letter, No. 56, makes 
the following observation upon him and his 
election. ' V/hat an abandoned, prostituted idiot 
is your lord mayor ! The shameful mismanage- 



the necessity of it to him — I mean the total 
and absolute renunciation of Mr Home. 
It is very likely indeed that this gentleman 
may do the business for himself, either by 
laying aside the masque at once, or by 
abusing Mr Sawbridge for accepting the 
mayoralty upon any terms whatsoever of 
accommodation with Mr Wilkes, 

This letter, Sir, is not intended for a cor- 
rect or polished composition ; but it con- 
tains the very best of JUNius's understand- 
ing. Do not treat me so unworthily, or 
rather do not degrade yourself so much, as 
to suspect me of any interested view to Mr 
Sawbridge's particular advantage. By all 
that's honourable I mean nothing but the 
cause ; and I may defy your keenest pene- 
tration to assign a satisfactory reason why 
Junius, whoever he be, should have a per- 
sonal interest in giving the mayoralty to 
Mr Sawbridge, rather than to Mr Crosby. 

I am heartily weary of writing, and shall 
reserve another subject, on which I mean 
to address you, for another opportunity. — 
I think that this letter, if you act upon it, 
should be a secret to everybod)'- but Mr 
Sawbridge and my lord mayor. 

JUN1US.2 



No. 66. 



TO JOHN WILKES, EsQ. 

Lo7ido?i, jth Sept. 1771.3 

As this letter, Sir, has no relation 
to the subject of my last, the motives upon 
which you may have rejected one of my 
opinions, ought not to influence your judg- 
ment of another. I am not very sanguine 



ment, which brought him into office, gave me 
the first, and an unconquerable disgust.' The 
subjoined is a list of the candidates for that office, 
with the numbers affixed to their respective 
names as they stood at the close of the poll : — 

For Mr Alderman Nash 

Mr Alderman Sawbridge 

The Lord INIayor . 

Mr Alderman Halifax . 

Mr Alderman Townshend 

Sir Henry Bankes . . 36 

3 Marked by Mr Wilkes, ' Received in Prince's 
Court, Saturday, Sept. 7, 1771.' 



2199 
1879 
179s 
846 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



91 



in my expectations of persuading, nor do I 
think myself intitled to quarrel with any 
man, for not following my advice ; yet this, 
I believe, is a species of injustice you have 
often experienced from your friends. From 
you. Sir, I expect in return, that you will 
not remember how unsuccessfully I have 
recommended one measure to your con- 
sideration, lest you should think yourself 
bound to assert your consistency, and, in 
the true spirit of persecution, to pass the 
same sentence indifferently upon all my 
opinions. Forgive this levity, and now to 
the business. 

A man, w]io honestly engages in a public 
cause, must prepare himself for events 
which will at once demand his utmost pa- 
tience, and rouse his warmest indignation. 
I feel myself, at this moment, in the very 
situation I describe ; yet from the common 
enemy I expect nothing but hostilities 
against the people. It is the conduct of 
our friends that surprises and afflicts me. 
I cannot but resent the injury done to the 
common cause by the assembly at the Lon- 
don Tavern, nor can I conceal from you 
my own particular disappointment. They 
had it in their power to perform a real, 



^ A copy of which is subjoined, to enable the 
reader the better to understand JuNius's ob- 
jections to them. They are as follow : — 

London Tavern, July 23, 1771. 
SUPPORTERS OF THE BILL OF 
RIGHTS. 

SAVAGE BARRELL, ESQ., IN THE CHAIR. 

Resolved, 

That the preamble, with the articles reported 
this day from the committee, be printed and pub- 
lished from this Society. 

Whoever seriously considers the conduct of 
administration, both at home and abroad, can 
hardly entertain a doubt, that a plan is formed to 
subvert the constitution. 

In the same manner, whoever attentively ex- 
amines into the proceedings of the present House 
of Commons, must apprehend, that such another 
House for seven years, after the termination of 
the present parliament, would effectually accom- 
plish the views of the court, and leave no liope 
of redress but in an appeal to God. 

The Middlesex election, taken on its true 
ground ; the employment of the standing army, 
in St George's Fields ; the granting half a mil- 
lion, without enquiring into the expenditure of 
the civil list money, and upon the dangerous 
principle of considering the debts of the civil list 



effectual service to the nation ; and we ex- 
pected from them a proof, not only of their 
zeal, but of their judgment. — Whereas the 
measure they have adopted is so shamefully 
injudicious, with regard to its declared 
object, that, in my opinion, it will, and 
reasonably ought, to make their zeal very 
questionable with the people they mean to 
serve. When I see a measure excellent in 
itself, and not absolutely unattainable, 
eidier not made the principal object, or 
extravagantly loaded with conditions pal- 
pably absurd or impracticable, I cannot 
easily satisfy myself, that the man, who 
proposes it, is quite so sincere as he pre- 
tends to be. You at least, Mr Wilkes, 
should have shown more temper and pru- 
dence, and a better knowledge of mankind. 
No personal respects whatsoever should 
have persuaded you to concur in these 
ridiculous resolutions. But my own zeal, 
I perceive, betrays me: I will endeavour to 
keep a better guard upon my temper, and 
apply to your judgment in the most cautious 
and measured language. 

I object, in the first place, to the bulk, 
and much more to the style of your resolu- 
tions of the 23rd of July ; 1 though some 

as the debts of the nation ; and encroaching, to 
discharge them, upon the sinking fund, the great 
support of public credit ; the attempts made on 
juries, the last sacred bulwark of hberty and 
law ; the arbitrary and venal hand with which 
government is conducted in Ireland ; the nev/ 
and most unconstitutional mode of raising a 
revenue on the people of America, without -ask- 
ing the consent of their representatives ; the in- 
troduction of an universal excise in America, 
instead of the laws of customs ; the advancing 
the military above the civil power, and employ- 
ing troops to awe the legislature : — All these are 
measures of so marked, so mischievous a nature, 
that it is impossible they should be unfeltor mis- 
understood ; yet these are measures which the 
House of Commons have acquiesced in, counte- 
nanced, or executed. 

If the present House of Commons then have 
given such vital wounds to the constitution, who 
is it can doubt, who is it can hope, that the con- 
duct of such another House, will not be mortal 
to our liberties ? 

The trustees of the people should be pure of all 
interested communication with the court or its 
ministers ; yet the corrupt correspondence be- 
tween the members of the House and the court 
is as notorious now as it is abhorrent from every 
great and good purpose of their institution. 



,92 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



part of the preamble is as pointed as 1 
could wish. You talk of yourselves with 



Placemen, pensioners, contractors and receivers 
of lottery tickets, abound to such a degree in the 
House of Commons, that it is impossible a House 
so constituted can do their duty to the people. 

It must be plain to the most common appre- 
hension, that men deputed by the people, to 
watch over and guard their rights against the 
crown and its ministers, and, for that purpose, 
vested with the transcendent powers of refusing 
aid to the one, and impeaching the other, can 
never duly exercise those powers, or fulfil the 
intention of their election, if they are kept in pay 
of that crown and those ministers. What is the 
plain and inevitalble consequence then of entrust- 
ing such men with the guardianship of our rights, 
but that our rights must be betrayed and violated ? 
Thus we have seen a House of Commons infring- 
ing, as the court had pre-ordained, the sacred 
birthright of the people in the freedom of elec- 
tion ; erasing a judicial record ; committing to 
the Tower, and threatening with impeachment, 
the friends of the people, and the defenders of 
the law ; while the favourites of the court are 
suffered to sport with the laws, and trample on 
the constitution, not only with impunity, but 
with approbation ; curbing the people rigorously, 
and without feeling ; while they uphold ministers, 
who are abhorred by the nation, in the most 
dangerous and alarming exertions of power ; 
granting money with the most liberal, the most 
licentious hand to those ministers against whom 
the voice of the people calls loudly for impeach- 
ment. We have a suspecting people, and a con- 
fiding representative : a complaining people, and 
an exulting representative ; a remonstrating peo- 
ple, and an addressing,adulatingrepresentative, — 
a representative, that is an engine of oppression in 
the hand of the crown, instead of being a grand 
controuling inquest in favour of the people. Such 
a representative is a monster in the constitution, 
which must fill every considerate man with grief, 
alarm, astonishment, and indignation. 

It is corruption that has engendered, nursed, 
and nourished this monster. Against such cor- 
ruption, then, all men, who value the preserv- 
ation of their dearest rights, are called upon to 
unite. Let us remember, that we ourselves, our 
children, and our posterity, must be freemen or 
slaves ; as we preserve or prostitute the noble 
birthright our ancestor-s bequeathed us : for 
should this corruption be once firmly rooted, we 
shall be an undone people. 

Already is it fixed among the representative, 
and we taste, a thousand ways, the bitter fruit 
which it produces ; should it extend equally to 
the electors, we must fall, as Greece and Rome 
have fallen, by the same means, from the same 
liberty and glory, to slavery, contempt, and 
wretchedness. 

Impressed with these ideas, the gentlemen who 
compose the Society of the Bill of Rights, have 
determined to use their utmost endeavours to 
exterminate this corruption, by providing for the 



too much authority and importance. By 
assuming this false pomp and air of conse- 



freedom of election, the equal representation of 
the people, the integrity of the representative, 
and the redress of grievances. It is their great 
wish to render the House of Commons what it 
constitutionally ought to be, the temple of liberty. 
With these views they have drawn up the follow- 
ing articles, which they now submit to the 
electors of Great Britain. At the same time they, 
with great deference, take the liberty of recom- 
mending to the independent electors to form 
those articles into a solemn declaration, which 
the candidates, whom they support, shall be re- 
quired, as the indispensable condition of their 
being supported, to sign and seal, publicly, at the 
general meeting, or at the place of election, bind- 
ing themselves, by oath, to a due and sacred 
observance of what is therein contained. 

The declaration so executed, may be deposited 
in the hands of the coroner, clerk of the peace, 
or magistrate before whom the oath was made, 
as a public memorial of what the constituent has 
demanded, and the representative has pledged 
himself to perform. 

1. You shall consent to no supplies, without a 
previous redress of grievances. 

2. You shall promote a law, subjecting each 
candidate to an oath, against having used 
bribery, or any other illegal means of compass- 
ing his election. 

3. You shall promote, to the utmost of your 
power, a full and equal representation of the 
people in parliament. 

4. You shall endeavour to restore annual par- 
liaments. 

5. You shall promote a pension and place-bill, 
enacting, That any member who receives a place, 
pension, contract, lottery ticket, or any other 
emolument whatsoever from the crown, or enjoys 
profit from any such place, pension, &c., shall 
not only vacate his seat, but be absolutely ineli- 
gible during his continuance under such undue 
influence. 

6. You shall impeach the ministers who ad- 
vised the violating the right of the freeholders in 
the Middlesex election ; and the military murders 
in St George's Fields. 

7. You shall make strict enquiry into the con- 
duct of judges touching juries. 

8. You shall make strict enquiry into the ap- 
plication of the public money. 

9. You shall use your utmost endeavours to 
have the resolution of the House of Commons 
expunged, by which the magistrates of the city 
of London were arbitrarily imprisoned, for strictly 
adhering to their charter and their oaths ; and 
also that resolution by which a judicial record 
was erased to stop the course of justice. 

ID. You shall attend to the grievances of our 
fellow-subjects in Ireland, and second the com- 
plaints they may bring to the throne. 

II. You shall endeavour to restore to America 
the essential right of taxation, by representatives 
of their own free election ; repealing the acts 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



93 



quence, you either give general disgust, or, 
what is infinitely more dangerous, you ex- 
pose yourselves to be laughed at. The 
English are a fastidious people, and will 
not submit to be talked to in so high a tone, 
by a set of private gentlemen, of whom 
they know nothing, but that they call them- 
selves Supportet's of the Bill of Rights. 
There are questions, which, in good poUcy, 
you should never pro\-oke the people in 
general to ask themselves. At the same 
time, Sir, I am far from meaning to under- 
value the institution of this Society. On the 
contrary, I think the plan was admirable ; 
that it has already been of signal service to 
the public, and may be of much greater ; 
and I do most earnestly wish, that you 
would consider of and promote a plan for 
forming constitutional clubs all through the 
kingdom. A measure of this kind would 
alarm government more, and be of more 
essential service to the cause, than anything 
that can be done relative to new-modelling 
the House of Commons. You see then, 
that my objections are directed to the par- 
ticular measure, not to the general institu- 
tion. 

In the consideration of this measure, my 
first objection goes to the declared purpose 
of the resolutions, in the terms and mode 
in which you have described it, viz. the ex- 
te>'?ni?iation of corruption. In vty opinion, 
you grasp at the impossible, and lose the 
really attainable. \\'ithout plaguing you 
or myself with a logical argument upon a 
speculative question, I willingly appeal to 
your own candour and judgment. Can any 
man in his senses affirm, that, as things are 
now circumstanced in this country, it is 
possible to exterminate corruption ? Do 
you seriously think it possible to carry 
through both Houses such a place-bill, as 
you describe in the fifth article ; or, sup- 
posing it carried, that it would not be 
evaded ? When you talk of contracts and 
lottery tickets, do you think that any human 
law can really prevent their being distri- 

passed in violation of that right, since the year 
1763 ; and the universal excise, so notoriously 
incompatible with every principle of British 



buted and accepted, or do you only intend 
to mortify Townshend a.nd. Harlcyf In short. 
Sir, would you, bona fide, and as a man of 
honour, give it for your expectation and 
opinion that there is a single county or 
borough in the kingdom, that will form the 
declaration recommended to them in these 
resolutions, and enforce it upon the candi- 
dates ? For myself, I will tell you freely, 
not what I //i/^/X', but what I know; the 
resolutions are either totally neglected in 
the country, or, if read, are laughed at, 
and by people who mean as well to the 
cause as any of us. 

With regard to the articles taken separ- 
ately, I own I am concerned to see that 
the great condition, which ought to be the 
sinegud non of parhamentary quahfication, 
which ought to be the basis, as it assuredly 
will be the only support, of every barrier 
raised in defence of the constitution, I 
mean a declaration tipon oath to shorten the 
duratio7i of parliaments, is reduced to the 
fourth rank in the esteem of the Society ; 
and, even in that place, far from being in- 
sisted on with firmness and vehemence, 
seems to have been particularly slighted in 
the expression, you shall e?idcavour to re- 
store annual parliajnents. Are these the 
terms which men who are in earnest make 
use of, when the salus reipublicce is at stake! 
I expected other language from Mr Wilkes. 
Besides my objection in point of form, I 
disapprove highly of the meaning of the 
fourth article, as it stands : — Whenever the 
question shall be seriously agitated, I will en- 
deavour (and if I live will assuredly attempt 
it) to convince the English nation, by argu- 
ments, to 7ny understanding unanswerable, 
that they ought to insist upon a triennial, 
and banish the idea of an annual parlia- 
ment. 

Article I. The terms of the first article 
would have been very proper a century or 
two ago, but they are not adapted to the 
present state of the constitution. The king 
does not act directly either in imposing or 



liberty, which has been lately substituted, in the 
colonies, for the laws of customs. 

Savage B.\rrell, Esq., Ch.\irm.\n. 



94 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



redressing grievances. We need not nozo 
bribe the crown to do us justice ; and, as 
to the refusal of supphes, we might punish 
ourselves indeed, but it would be no way 
compulsory upon the king. With respect 
to his civil list, he is already independent, 
or might be so, if he has common sense, or 
common resolution : and as for refusing to 
vote the army or navy, I hope we shall 
never be mad enough to try an experiment 
every way so hazardous. But, in fact, the 
effort would be infiriitely too great for the 
occasion. All we want is an honest repre- 
sentative, or at least such a one as will have 
some respect for the constituent body. 
Formerly the House of Commons were 
compelled to bargain with the Sovereign. 
At present they may prescribe their own 
conditions. So much, in general, for griev- 
ances : as to particular grievances, almost 
all those we complain of are, apparently, 
the acts either of the Lords or the Commons. 
The appointment of unworthy ministers, is 
not strictly a grievance (that is, a legal 
subject of complaint to the king), until 
those ministers are arraigned and convicted 
in due course of law. If, after that, the 
king should persist in keeping them in 
office, it would be "3. grievance in the strict, 
legal sense of the word, and would un- 
doubtedly justify rebellion according to the 
forms, as well as the spirit, of the constitu- 
tion. I am far from condemning the late 
addresses to the throne. They ought to be 
incessantly repeated. The people, by the 
singular situation of their affairs, are com- 
pelled to do the duty of the House of Com- 
mons. 

Article 2. I object to the second article, 
because I think that multiplying oaths is 
only multiplying perjury. Besides this, I 
am satisfied that, with a triennial parlia- 
ment (and without it all other provisions 
are nugatory) Mr Grenville's bill is, or may 
be made, a sufficient guard against any 
gross or flagrant offences in this way. 

Article 3. The terms of the third article 
are too loose and indefinite to make a dis- 
tinct or serious impression. That the peo- 
ple are not equally and fully represented is 



unquestionable. But let us take care what 
we attempt. We may demolish the ven- 
erable fabric we intend to repair ; and where 
is the strength and virtue to erect a better 
in its stead ? I should not, for my own part, 
be so much moved at the corrupt and odious 
practices, by which inconsiderable men get 
into parliament ; nor even at the v/ant of a 
perfect representation (and certainly nothing 
can be less reconcileable to the theory, than 
the present practice of the constitution), if 
means could be found to compel such men 
to do their duty (in essentials at least) when 
they are in parliament. Now, Sir, I am 
convinced that, if shortening the duration 
of parliaments (which in effect is keeping 
the representative under the rod of the con- 
stituent) be not made the basis of our new 
parhamentary jurisprudence, other checks 
or improvements signify nothing. On the 
contrary, if this be made the foundation, 
other measures may come in aid, and, as 
auxiliaries, be of considerable advantage. 
Lord Chatham's project, for instance, of 
increasing the number of Knights of Shires, 
appears to me admirable, and the moment 
we have obtained a triennial parliament, it 
ought to be tried. As to cutting away the 
rotten boroughs, I am as much offended as 
any man at seeing so many of them under 
the direct influence of the crown, or at the 
disposal of private persons ; j'-et I own I 
have both doubts and apprehensions, in re- 
gard to the remedy you propose. I shall 
be charged, perhaps, with an unusual want 
of political intrepidity, when I honestly con- 
fess to you, that I am startled at the idea 
of so extensive an amputation. In the first 
place, I question the power, dejiirc, of the 
legislature to disfranchise a number of 
boroughs upon the general ground of im- 
proving the constitution. There cannot be 
a doctrine more fatal to the liberty and 
property we are contending for, than that 
which confounds the idea of a supreme and 
an arbitrary legislature. I need not point 
out to you, the fatal purposes to which it 
has been and may be apphed. If we are 
sincere in the poUtical creed we profess, 
there are many things which we ought to 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



95 



affirm, cannot be done by King, Lords, 
and Commons. Among these I reckon the 
disfranchising a borough with a general 
view to improvement. I consider it as 
equivalent to robbing the parties concerned, 
of their freehold, of their birthright. I say, 
that although this birthright may be for- 
feited, or the e.xercise of it suspended in 
particular cases, it cannot be taken away 
by a general law, for any real or pretended 
purpose of improving the constitution. I 
believe there is no power in this country to 
make such a law. Supposing the attempt 
made, I am persuaded you cannot mean 
that either King or Lords should take an 
active part in it. A bill, which only touches 
the representation of the people, must 
originate in the House of Commons, in the 
formation and mode of passing it. The 
exclusive right of the Commons must be 
asserted as scrupulously as in the case of a 
Money Bill. Now, Sir, I should be glad 
to know by what kind of reasoning it can 
be proved, that there is a pow-er vested in 
the representative to destroy his immediate 
constituent : from whence could he possibly 
derive it ? A courtier, I know, will be ready 
enough to maintain the affirmative. The 
doctrine suits him exactly, because it gives 
an unhmited operation to the influence of 
the crown. But we, ^Ir Wilkes, must hold 
a different language. It is no answer to 
m.e to say, that the bill, when it passes the 
House of Commons, is the act of the ma- 
jority, and not of the representatives of the 
particular boroughs concerned. If the 
majority can disfranchise ten boroughs, 
why not twenty? Why not the whole j 
kingdom? Why should not they make 
their own seats in parliament for life ? 
When the Septennial Act passed, the legis- 
lature did what apparently and palpably ' 
they had no power to do ; but they did ' 
more than people in general were aware of ; 
they disfranchised the whole kingdom for 
four years. For argument's sake, I will 
now suppose, that the expediency of the 
measure, and the power of parliament, were 
unquestionable. Still you will find an in- 
surmountable difficulty in the execution, j 

1 



When all your instruments of amputation 
are prepared — ^when the unhappy patient 
hes bound at your feet, without the pos- 
sibility of resistance, by w^hat infallible rule 
will you direct the operation ? When you 
propose to cut away the rotten parts, can 
you tell us what parts are perfectly sound ? 
Are there any certain hmits, in fact or 
theory, to inform you at what point you 
must stop--at what point the mortification 
ends ? To a man so capable of observatiori 
and- reflection as you are, it is unnecessary 
to say all that might be said upon the sub- 
ject. Besides that I approve highly of lord 
Chatham's idea of 'infusing a portion of 
new health into the constitution to enable 
it to bear its infirmities ' (a briUiant expres- 
sion, and full of intrinsic wisdom), other 
reasons concur in persuading me to adopt 
it. I have no objection to paying him such 
compliments as carry a condition with 
them, and eidier bind him firmly to the 
cause, or become the bitterest reproach to 
him if he deserts it. Of this last I have not 
the most distant suspicion. There is 
another man, indeed, with whose conduct 
I am not so completely satisfied.^ Yet 
even he, I think, has not resoludon enough 
to do any thing flagrantly impudent in the 
face of his country. At the same time that 
I think it good policy to pay those compli- 
ments to lord Chatham, which, in truth, 
he has nobly deserved, I should be glad to 
mortify those contemptible creatures who 
call themselves noblemen, whose worthless 
importance depends entirely upon their in- 
fluence over boroughs, w"hich cannot be 
safely diminished, but by increasing the 
power of the counties at large. Among 
these men, I cannot but distinguish the 
meanest of the human species, the whole 
race of the Co?iways. I have but one word 
to add, — I would not give representatives 
to those great trading towns, which have 
none at present. If the merchant and the 
manufacturer must be rsally represented, 

"^ Possibly lord Camden is the person here 
alluded to ; as Junius, in Letter LXIX., seems 
to entertain some suspicion of this nobleman, 
from his renewed intimacy with the duke of 
Grafton. 



96 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



let them become freeholders by their in- 
dustry, and let the representation of the 
county be increased. You will find the in- 
terruption of business in those towns, by 
the triennial riot and cabals of an election, 
too dear a price for the nugatory privilege 
of sending members to parliament. 

The remaining articles will not require a 
long discussion ; — of the fourth and fifth I 
have spoken already. 

Article 6. The measures recommended 
in the sixth are unexceptionable. My only 
doubt is, how can an act, apparently done 
by the House of Commons, be fixed, by 
sufficient legal evidence, upon the duke of 
Grafton, or lord North, of whose guilt I am 
nevertheless completely satisfied. As for 
lord Weymouth and lord Barrington, their 
own letters are a sufficient ground of im- 
peachment. 

Article 7. The seventh article is also 
very proper and necessary. The impeach- 
ment of lord Mansfield, upon his own paper, 
is indispensable. Yet suffer me to guard 
you against the seducing idea of concurring 
in any vote, or encouraging any bill, which 
may pretend to ascertain, while in reality it 
limits, the constitutional power of juries. I 
would have their right, to return a geiieral 
verdict in all cases whatsoever, considered 
as a part of the constitution, fundamental, 
sacred, and no more questionable by the 
legislature, than whether the government 
of the country shall be by King, Lords, 
and Commons. Upon this point, an En- 
acting Bill would be pernicious ; a Declara- 
tory Bill, to say the best of it, useless. 

Article 8. I think the eighth article would 
be more properly expressed thus : You shall 
grant no money, unless for services known 
to, and approved of, by Parliament. In 
general the supplies are appropriated, and 
cannot easily be misapplied. The House 
of Commons are indeed too ready in grant- 
ing large sums under, the head of extraor- 
dinaries incurred, and not provided for. 
But the accounts lie before them ; — it is 
their own fault if they do not examine them. 
The manner in which the late debt upon 
the civil list was pretended to be incurred, 



and really paid, demands a particular eX' 
amination. Never was there a more im- 
pudent outrage offered to a patient people. 

Article 9. The ninth is indispensable ; 
but I think the matter of it rather fit for in- 
struction, than for the declaration you have 
in view. I am very apprehensive of clog- 
ging the declaration, and making it too 
long. 

Articles ip and 11. In the tenth and 
eleventh you are very civil to Ireland and 
America ; and if you mean nothing but 
ostentation, it may possibly answer your 
purpose. Your care of Ireland is much to 
be commended. But, I think, in good 
policy, you may as well complete a reforma- 
tion at home, before you attempt to carry 
your improvements to such a distance. 
Clearing the fountain is the best and short- 
est way to purify the stream. As to taxing 
the Americans by their own representatives, 
I confess I do not perfectly understand you. 
If you propose that, in the article of taxa- 
tion, they should hereafter be left to the 
authority of their respective assemblies, I 
must own I think you had no business to 
revive a question which should, and pro- 
bably would, have lain dormant for ever. If 
you mean that the Americans should be 
authorized to send their representatives to 
the British parliament, I shall be contented 
with referring you to what Mr Burke has 
said upon this subject, and will not venture 
to add anything of my own, for fear of dis- 
covering an offensive disregard of your 
opinion. Since the repeal of the Stamp 
Act, I know of no acts tending to tax the 
Americans, except that which creates the 
tea duty ; and even that can hardly be 
called internal. Yet it ought to be re- 
pealed, as an impolitic act, not as an op- 
pressive one. It preserves the contention 
between the mother country and the 
colonies, when every thing worth contend- 
ing for is in reality given up. When this 
act is repealed, I presume you will turn 
your thoughts to the postage of letters ; a 
tax imposed by authority of parliament, and 
levied in the very heart of the colonies. I 
am not sufficiently informed upon the sub- 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



97 



ject of that excise, which you say is substi- 
tuted in North America to the laws of cus- 
toms, to dehver such an opinion upon it as 
I would abide by. Yet I can easily com- 
prehend, that admitting the necessity of 
raising a revenue for the support of govern- 
ment there, any other revenue laws, but 
those of excise, would be nugatory in such 
a country as America. I say this with 
great diffidence as to the point in question, 
and with a positive protest against any con- 
clusion from America to Great Britain. 

If these observations shall appear to de- 
serve the attention of the Society, it is for 
them to consider what use may be made of 
them. I know how difficult and irksome it 
is to tread back the steps we have taken ; 
yet, if any part of what I have submitted to 
you carries reason and conviction with it, I 
hope that no false shame will influence our 
friends at the London Tavern. 

I do not deny that I expect my opinions 
upon these points should have some degree 
of weight with you. I have served Mr 
Wilkes, and am still capable of serving him. 
I have faithfully served the public, without 
the possibility of a personal advantage. As 
Junius, I can never expect to be rewarded. 
— The secret is too important to be com- 
mitted to any great man's discretion. If 
views of interest or ambition could tempt 
me to betray my own secret, how could I 
flatter myself that the man I trusted would 
not act upon the same principles, and 
sacrifice me at once to the king's curiosity 
and resentment ? Speaking therefore as a 
disinterested man, I have a claim to your 
attention. Let my opinions be fairly ex- 
amined. 

JUNIUS. 

P. S. As you will probably never hear 
from me again, I will not omit this oppor- 
tunity of observing to you, that I am not 
properly supported in the newspapers. 
One would think that all the fools were of 
the other side of the question. As to my- 
self it is of little moment. I can brush 
away the swarming insects whenever I think 
proper. But it is bad poUcy to let it appear, 



in any instance, that we have not numbers 
as well as justice of our side. I wish you 
would contrive that the receipt of this letter 
and my last, might be barely acknowledged 
by a hint in the Public Advertiser. 



No. 6^. 

TO JUNIUS. 
Prince s Court, Monday, Sept. 9. 
Mr Wilkes had the honour of re- 
ceiving from the same gentleman two 
excellent letters on important subjects, one 
dated Aug. 21st, the other Sept. 7th. He 
begs the favour of the author to prescribe 
the mode of .Mr Wilkes's communicating 
his answer.i 



No. 68. 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

10 Sept. 1771. 
You may intrust Woodfall with a 
letter for me. Leave the rest to his man- 
agement. 

I expect. that you will not enter into any 
explanations with him whatsoever." 



Sir, 



No. 6g. 

TO JUNIUS. 

Sept. 12, 1771. 
I DO not mean to indulge the 
impertinent curiosity of finding out the 
most important secret of our times, the 
author of Junius. I will not attempt with 
profane hands to tear the sacred veil of the 
sanctuary ; I am disposed with the inhabit- 
ants of Attica, to erect afi altar to the 
unknown god of our political idolatry, and 
will be content to worship him in clouds 
and darkness. 

This very circumstance, however, deeply 
embarrasses me. The first letter with 
which I was honoured by Junius, called 
for a thousand anecdotes of Crosbv, Saw- 



^ This note was inserted in the P. A. of Sept. 

ID, I77I. 

^ Mr Wilkes has written on it, ' Received by 
the Penny Post.' 

7 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



bridge, and Townshend, too tedious, too j 
minute, to throw upon paper, which yet j 
must be acted upon, and, as he well knows, j 
mark the character of men. Junius has, in 
my idea, too favourable sentiments of Saw- 
bridge. I allow him honest, but think he | 
has more mulishness than understanding, | 
more understanding than candour. He is j 
become the absolute dupe of Malagrida's 
gang. He has declared, that if he was i 
chosen mayor this year, he would not serve I 
the office, but fine, because Townshend j 
ought to be mayor. Such a declaration is 
certain, and in my opinion it borders on j 
insanity. To me Sawbridge complained ' 
the last year that his sheriffalty passed 
in a continual secret cabal of Beckford, 
Townshend, and Home, without the com- 
munication of anything to him till the 
moment of execution. Sawbridge has 
openly acted against us. Our troops will 
not be brought at present to fight his bat- 
tles. Mrs Macauley has warmly espoused 
the common cause, and severely condemns 
her brother. Any overtures to Sawbridge, 
I believe, would have been rejected, per- 
haps treated with contempt, by not the best 
bred man in the island. How could I 
begin a negotiation when I was already 
pledged to Crosby, who has fed himself 
with the hope of that and the membership, 
by which I overcame his natural timidity ? 
Junius sees the confidence I place in him. 
Could there be a prospect of any cordiality 
between Sawbridge and the popular party, 
at least so soon as his mayoralty ? I should 
fear the Mansion House would be besieged, 
and taken by the banditti of the Shelburnes. 
But what I am sure will be decisive to Ju- 
nius, I was engaged to Crosby before I 
received the letter of Aug. 21, and I have 
not since found in him the least incHnation 
to yield the favourite point. The member- 
ship of the city is a security to the public 
for his steadiness in the cause. Surely then 
it would have been imprudent to have 
wished a change. My duty to the people 
only makes me form a wish for Crosby. To 
make Crosby mayor, it is necessary to 
return to the court of aldermen another 



man so obnoxious that it is impossible for 
them to elect him. Bridgen I take to be 
this man. While he presided in the city, he 
treated them with insolence, was exceed- 
ingly rude and scurrilous to them person- 
ally, starved them at the few entertainments 
he gave, and pocketed the city cash. As he 
has always voted on the popular side, we 
are justified to the livery in the recom- 
mendation of him, and the rest will be 
guessed. Crosby will probably be the 
locum tei7ens of Bridgen, if Bridgen is 
elected. I wrote the letter on this subject 
in the PubUc Advertiser of Sept. 5. The 
argument there is specious, although my 
private opinion is, the House of Commons 
will not again fall into that snare. Into 
another I am satisfied they will. The 
House of Lords too, will, I think, furnish a 
most interesting scene, in consequence of 
the powers they usurp, and the sheriff 
means the attack. I wish this great busi- 
ness, as I have projected it, could be 
unravelled in a letter or two to Junius, 
but the detail is too long and intricate. 
How greatly is it to be lamented that the 
few real friends of the public have so little 
communication of counsels, so few and 
only distant means of a reserved inter- 
course ! 

I have no where met with more excellent 
and abundant political matter than in the 
letter of Junius respecting the Bill of 
Rights. He ought to know from me, that 
the American Dr Lee (the Gazetteer's Ju- 
nius Americanus) was the author of the too 
long Preamble, Articles, &c. They were, 
indeed, submitted to me on the morning of 
the day on which they passed, but I made 
few corrections. I disliked the extreme ver- 
biage of every part, and wished the whole 
put again on the anvil. Sir Joseph Maw- 
bey and I were of opinion to adjourn the 
business for a re-consideration, but the 
majority of the members were too impa- 
tient to have something go forth in their 
names to the public. It would have been 
highly imprudent in sir Joseph or me to 
thwart them in so favourite a point, and 
the substance I indeed greatly approve. At 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



99 



all times I hate taking in other people's 
foul linen to wash. The Society of the Bill 
of Rights have been called my committee, 
and it has been said that they were 
governed entirely by me. This has spread 
a jealousy even among my friends. I was 
therefore necessitated to act the most cau- 
tious and prudent part. You cannot always 
do all the good you wish, and you are 
sometimes reduced to the necessity of yield- 
ing in a particular moment to conciliate the 
doubtful, the peevish, or the refractory. Ju- 
nius may be assured that I will warmly 
recommend the formation of constitutional 
clubs in several parts of the kingdom. I 
am satisfied that nothing would more 
alarm the ministry. I agree that the short- 
ening the duration of parliaments is the 
first and most important of all consider- 
ations, without which all the rest would be 
nugatory ; but I am unhappy to differ with 
Junius in so essential a point as that of 
triennial parliaments. They are inadequate 
to the cure of destroying dependance in the 
members on the crown. They only lessen, 
not root out, corruption, and only reduce 
the purchase money for an annuity of three 
instead of seven years. I have a thousand 
arguments against triennial and in favour of 
annual parhaments. The question was 
fairly agitated at the London Tavern, and 
several of your friends owned that they 
were convinced. The subject is too copious 
for a letter. I hope to read Junius' s 
mature and deliberate thoughts on this 
subject. I own that in the House of Com- 
mons sound policy would rather favour 
triennial parliaments as the necessary road 
to annual, but the constitutional question 
is different. 

I am sorry likewise to differ with Junius 
as to the power de jure of the legislature to 
disfranchise any boroughs. How origin- 
ated the right, and why was it granted ? 
Old Sarum and Gatton, for instance, were 
populous places, when the right of repre- 
sentation was first given them. They are 
now desolate, and therefore in everything 
should return to their former state. A 
barren mountain or a single farm-house 



can have no representation in parliament. 
I exceedingly approve lord Chatham's idea 
of .increasing the number of knights of 
shires. If parliaments are not annual, I 
should not disapprove of a third part of the 
legislative body going out every year by 
ballot, and of consequence an annual re- 
election in part. 

I am 30 much harassed with business at 
present, that I have not time to mention 
many particulars of importance, and these 
three days I have had the shivering fits of a 
slow lurking fever, a strange disorder for 
Wilkes, which makes writing painful to me. 
I could plunge the patriot dagger in the 
heart of the tyrant of my country, but my 
hand would now tremble in doing it. In 
general I enjoy settled confirmed health, to 
which I have for some years paid great 
attention, chiefly from public views. 

I am satisfied that Junius now means 
me well, and I wish to merit more than his 
regard, his friendship. He has poured 
balm into my wounds, the deepest of which, 
I sigh when I recollect, were made by that 
now friendly hand, I am always ready to 
kiss his rod, but I hope its destination is 
changed, and that it will never again fall 
as heavy upon me as towards the conclu- 
sion of the year 1769, when Thurlow said 
sneeringly, the government prosecuted Ju- 
nius out of compliment to Wilkes. I 
warmly wish Junius my friend. As a pub- 
lic man I think myself secure of his sup- 
port, for I will only depend on popular 
favour, and pursue only the true constitu- 
tional points of liberty. As a private person 
I figure to myself that Junius is as amiable 
in the private as he is great in tlie public 
walk of life. I now live very much at home, 
happy in the elegant society of a sensible 
daughter, whom Junius has noticed in the 
most obliging manner. 

I have not had a moment's conversation 
with Woodfall on the subject of our corre- 
spondence, nor did I mean to mention it to 
him. All he can guess, will be from the 
following card, which I shall send by my 
servant with this letter. ' Mr Wilkes pre- 
sents his compliments to Mr Woodfall, and 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



desires him to direct and forward the en- 
closed to Junius.' After the first letter of 
Junius to me, I did not go to Woodfall to 
pry into a secret I had no right to know. 
The letter itself bore the stamp of Jove. I 
was neither doubting nor impertinent. I 
wish to comply with every direction of Ju- 
nius, to profit by his hints, and to have the 
permission of writing to him on any im- 
portant occasion. I desire to assure him, 
that in all great public concerns, I am per- 
fectly free from every personality either of 
dishke or affection. The Stoic apathy is 
then really mine. 

I^ord Chatham said to me ten years ago, 
' ****** is the falsest hypo- 
crite in Europe.' I must hate the man as 
much as even Junius can, for through this 
whole reign almost it has been * * * * 
***** verstis Wilkes. This con- 
duct will probably make it Wilkes versus 
*********. Junius must 
imagine that no man in the island feels 
what he writes on that occasion more than 
I do. 

This letter is an emanation of the heart, 
not an effort of the head. It claims atten- 
tion from the honest zeal and sincerity of 
the writer, whose affection for his country 
will end only with his life. 

JOHN WILKES. 



Sir, 



No. 70. 

TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.l 

London, \%th Sept., 1771. 
Your letter of the 12th instant 
was carefully conveyed to me. I am much 
flattered, as you politely intended I should 
be, with the worship you are pleased to pay 
to the unknown god of politics. I find I 
am treated as other gods usually are by 
their votaries, with sacrifice and ceremony 
in abundance, and very little obedience. 
The profession of yotir faith is unexception- 
able ; but I am a modest deity, and should 
be full as well satisfied with good works 
and morality. 



^ Written on by him, * Received Monday 
afternoon, September 18, 1771.' 



There is a rule in business that would 
save much time if it were generally adopted. 
A question once decided is no longer a sub- 
ject of argtiment. You have taken your 
resolution about the mayoralty. What I 
have now to say is not meant to alter it, 
but, in perfect good humour, to guard you 
against some inconveniences, which may 
attend the execution. It is your own affair, 
and though I still think you have chosen 
injudiciously, both for yourself and for the 
public, I have no right to find fault or to 
tease you with reflections, which cannot 
divert you from your purpose. 

I cannot comprehend the reason of Mr 
Crosby's eagerness to be lord mayor, unless 
he proposes to disgrace the office and him- 
self by pocketing the salary. In that ~case 
he will create a disgust among the citizens, 
of which you and your party will feel the 
bad effects, and as for himself he may bid 
adieu to all hopes of being returned for the 
city. That he should five with unusual 
splendor is essentially your interest and his 
own ; and even then I do not perceive that 
his merits are so distinguished as to entitle 
him to a double reward. Of the dignity or 
authority of a locum tene7ts, I know no- 
thing ; nor can I conceive what credit Mr 
Crosby is likely to derive from representing 
Mr Bridgen. But suppose Bridgen should 
be lord mayor, and should keep his word 
in appointing Crosby his lieutenant, I 
should be glad to know, who is to support 
the expense and dignity of the office ? It 
may suit such a fellow as Bridgen to shut 
up the Mansion-house, but I promise you 
his economy will be of no service to Mr 
Wilkes. If you make him mayor, you will 
be made answerable for his conduct ; and 
if he and Crosby be returned, you may "de- 
pend upon it the court of aldermen will 
choose him. 

With regard to Mr Sawbridge, since I 
cannot prevail with you to lay the founda- 
tion of a closer union between you, by any 
positive sacrifice in his favour, at least let 
me entreat you to observe a moderate and 
guarded conduct towards him. I should 
be much concerned to see his character 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



traduced, or his person insulted. He is 
not a dupe to any set of men whatsoever, 
nor do I think he has taken any violent or 
decided part against you. — Yet to be ex- 
cluded from those honours which are the 
only rewards he pretends to, and to which 
he is so justly entitled, and to see them be- 
stowed upon such men as Crosby and Bridgen, 
is enough to excite and justify his resent- 
ment. All this. Sir, is matter of conveni- 
ence, which I hope you will consider. 
There is another point, upon which I must 
be much more serious and earnest with 
you. You seem to have no anxiety or 
apprehension but lest the friends of lord 
Shelburne should get possession of the 
Mansion-house. In my opinion they have 
no chance of success whatsoever. The 
real danger is from the interest of govern- 
ment ; from Harley, and the Tories. — If 
while you are employed in counteracting 
Mr Townshend, a ministerial alderman 
should be returned, you will have ruined 
the cause. — You will have ruined yourself, 
and for ever. To say that Junius could 
never forgive you is nothing ; ^ — you could 
never forgive yourself.— Junius from that 
moment will be compelled to consider you 
as a man who has sacrificed the pubhc to 
views which were every way unworthy of 
you. If then, upon a fair canvass of the 
livery, you should see a probability that 
Bridgen may not be returned, let that point 
be given up at once, and let Sawbridge be 
returned with Crosby ; — a more likely way, 
in my judgment, to make Crosby lord 
mayor. 

Nothing can do you greater honour, nor 
be of greater benefit to the community, 
than your intended attack upon the un- 
constitutional powers assumed by the House 
of Lords. You have my warmest applause ; 
and if I can assist, command my assistance. 
The arbitrary power of fine and imprison- 
ment, assumed by these men, would be a 
disgrace to any form of legal government 
not purely aristocratical. — Directly, it 
invades the laws ; indirectly, it saps the 

* See note to Private Letter, No. 56. 



constitution. Naturally phlegmatic, these 
questions warm me. — I envy you the laurels 
you will acquire. — Banish the thought that 
Junius can make a dishonourable or an 
imprudent use of the confidence you repose 
in him. When you have leisure, communi- 
cate your plan to me, that I may have time 
to examine it, and to consider what part I 
can act with the greatest advantage to the 
cause. The constitutional argument is 
obvious. I wish you to point out to me 
where you think the force of the formal 
legal argument lies. In pursuing such in- 
quiries I lie under a singular disadvantage. 
Not venturing to consult those who are 
qualified to inform me, I am forced to 
collect every thing from books or common 
conversation. The pains I took with that 
paper upon privilege, were greater than I 
can express to you. Yet after I had blind- 
ed myself with poring over journals, de- 
bates, and parhamentary history, I was at 
last obliged to hazard a bold assertion, 
which I am now convinced is true (as I 
really then thought it), because it has not 
been disproved or disputed. — There is this 
material difference upon the face of the two 
questions. We can clearly show a time 
when the Lower House had not an un- 
limited power of commitment for breach of 
privilege. Whereas I fear we shall not 
have the same advantage over the House 
of Lords. It is not that precedents have 
any weight with me in opposition to prin- 
ciples ; but I know they weigh with the 
multitude. 

My opinion of the several articles of the 
proposed declaration remains unaltered. I 
cannot pretend to answer those arguments 
in favour of annual parliaments, by which 
you say the friends of Junius were con- 
vinced. I'he question is not what is best 
in theory (for there I should undoubtedly 
agree with you), but what is most expedient 
in practice. You labour to carry the con- 
stitution to a point of perfection which it 
can never reach to, or at which it cannot 
long be stationary. In this idea I think I 
see the mistake of a speculative man, who 
is either not conversant with the world, or 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



not sufficiently persuaded of the necessity 
of taking things as they are. The objection 
drawn from the purchase of an annuity for 
thne years instead of seven, is defective, 
because it applies in the same proportion 
to an annuity for one year. This is not 
the question. The point is to keep the 
representative as much under the check 
and controul of the constituent, as can be 
done consistently with other great and 
essential objects. But without entering 
further into the debate, I would advise, 
that this part of the declaration be expressed 
in general terms ; viz. to shorten the dura- 
tion of parliaments. This mediating ex- 
pedient will, for the present, take in both 
opinions, and leave open the quantum of 
time to a future discussion. 

In answer to a general argument, by 
which the unoontroulable right of the people 
to form the third part of the legislature is 
defended, you urge against me two gross 
cases, which undoubtedly call for correction. 
These cases, you may believe, did not 
escape me, and by the bye, admit of a par- 
ticular answer. But it is not treating me 
fairly to oppose general principles with 
particular abuses. It is not in human 
policy to form an institution from which no 
possible inconvenience shall arise. I did 
not pretend to deliver a doctrine, to which 
there could be no possible objection. We 
are to chuse between better and worse. Let 
us come fairly to the point. — Whether is it 
safer to deny the legislature a power of dis- 
franchising all the electors of a borough ; 
(which, if denied, entails a number of rotten 
boroughs upon the constitution)— or to 
admit the power, and so leave it with the 
legislature to disfranchise ad arbitrmtn 
every borough and county in the kingdom. 
If you deny the consequence, it will be in- 
cumbent upon you to prove by positive 
reasoning that a power which holds in the 
case of Aylesbury or New Shorehara, does 
not hold in the case of York, London, or 
Middlesex. To this question I desire a 
direct answer ; and when we have fixed our 
. principles, we may regularly descend to the 
detail. The cases of Gatton and Old Sarum 



do not embarrass me. Their right to re- 
turn members to parliament has neither 
fact nor theory to support it. — ' They have, 
bond fide, no electors.' Consequently there 
is no man to be dispossessed of his free- 
hold. No man to be disfranchised of his 
right of election. At the worst, supposing the 
annihilation of these pretended boroughs 
could no way be reconciled to my own 
principles, I shall only say, give me a 
healthy, vigorous constitution, and I shall 
hardly consult my looking-glass to discover 
a blemish upon my skin. 

You ask me, from whence did the right 
originate, and for what purpose was it 
granted ? I do not see the tendency of 
these questions, but I answer them without 
scruple : ' In general it arose from the 
king's writs, and it was granted with a view 
to balance the power of the nobility, and to 
obtain aids from the people.' — But without 
looking back to an obscure antiquity, from* 
which no certain information can be col- 
lected, you will find that the laws of Eng- 
land have much greater regard to possession 
(of a certain length) than to any other title 
whatsoever ; and that, in every kind of 
property which savours of the reality, this 
doctrine is most wisely the basis of our 
English jurisprudence. Though I use the 
terms of art, do not injure me so much as 
to suspect I am a lawyer. — I had as lief be 
a Scotchman. — It is the encouragement 
given to disputes about titles, which has 
supported that iniquitous profession at the 
expense of the community. — As to this 
whole argument about rotten boroughs, if 
I seem zealous in supporting my opinion, it 
is not from a conception that the constitu- 
tion cannot possibly be relieved from them 
— I mean only to reconcile you to an evil 
which cannot safely be removed. 

Now, Mr Wilkes, I shall deal very 
plainly with you. The subject of my first 
letter was private and personal, and I am 
content it should be forgotten. Your letter 
to me is also sacred. But my second letter 
is of public import, and must not be sup- 
pressed. I did not mean that it should be 
buried in Prince's Court. It would be un- 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



103 



fair to embarrass you with a new question, 
while your city election is depending. But 
if I perceive that within a reasonable time 
after that business is concluded, no steps are 
taken with the Bill of Rights to forma new, 
short, and rational declaration (whether by 
laying my letter before the Society, or by 
any other mode that you shall think advis- 
able), I shall hold myself obliged, by a duty 
paramount to all other considerations, to 
institute an amicable suit against the So- 
ciety before the tribunal of the public. 
Without asperity, without petulance or 
disrespect, I propose to publish the second 
letter, and to answer or submit to argu- 
ment. The necessity of taking this step 
will indeed give me pain, for I well know 
that differences between the advocates are 
of no service to the cause. But the lives of 
the best of us are spent in chusing between 
evils. — As to you. Sir, you m.ay as well take 
the trouble of directing that Society, since 
whatever they do is placed to your account. 

The dom.estic society you speak of is 
much to be envied. I fancy I should like 
it still better than you do. I too am no 
enemy to good fehowship, and have often 
cursed that canting parson for wishing to 
deny you your claret. It is for him, and 
men like hhn, to beware of intoxication. 
Though I do not place the Uttle pleasures 
of life ill competition with the glorious busi- 
ness of instructing and directing the people, 
yet I see no reason why a wise man may 
not unite the public virtues of Cato, with 
the indulgence of Epicurus. 

Continue careful of your health. Your 
head is too useful to be spared, and your 
hand may be wanted. Think no more of 
what is past. You did not then stand so 
well in my opinion ; and it was necessary 
to the plan of that letter to rate you lower j 
than you deserved. The wound is curable, 
and the scar shall be no disgrace to you. 

I wiUingly accept of as much of your 
friendship as you can impart to a man 
whom you will assuredly never know. Be- 
sides every personal consideration, if I were 
know-n, I could no longer be an useful 
servant to the public . At present there is 



something oracular in the delivery of my 
opinions. I speak from a recess which no 
human curiosity can penetrate, and dark- 
ness, we are told, is one source of the sub- 
hme. — The mystery of Junius increases 
his importance. 

JUNIUS. 



No. 71. 

Pj'inces Court, T/mrsday, Sept. 19. 
Mr Wilkes thanks Air Woodfall 
for the care of the former letter, and 
desires him to transmit the enclosed to 
Junius. 

to junius. 
Sir, Sept. 19, 1771. 

I HAD last night the honour of 
your letter of yesterday's date. I am just 
gomg to the Common Hall, but first take 
up the pen to thank you for the kindness 
you express to me, and to say that the 
Bill of Rights meet next Tuesday. I 
thought it necessary not to lose a moment 
in giving you this information, that what- 
ever you judge proper may be submitted to 
that Society as early as possible. Junius 
may command me in every thing. When he 
says, ' my second letter is of public import, 
and must not be suppressed. I did not 
mean that it should be buried in Prince's 
Court,' — does he wish it should be com- 
municated to the Society, and in what 
manner? The beginning of the second 
letter refers to a first letter, and some other 
expressions may be improper Yor the know- 
ledge of the Society. I wait JuNius's 
directions. I beg his free sentiments on all 
occasions. I mean next week to state a 
variety of particulars for his consideration 
and in answer to his letter. I had now- 
only a moment to mention a point of busi- 
ness and a feeling of gratitude. 

JOHN WILKES. 



I04 



PRVATE LETTERS. 



No. 72. 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

Sir, 21 Sept. 1771.^ 

Since you are so obliging as to 
say, you will be guided by my opinion as 
to the manner of laying my sentiments be- 
fore the Bill of Rights, I see no reason why 
the whole of the second letter may not be 
read there next Tuesday, except the post- 
script, which has no connexion with the 
rest, and the word ridiculous, which may 
naturally give offence ; — as I mean to per- 
suade and soften, not irritate or offend. 
Let that word be expunged. The prefatory 
part you may leave or not as you think 
proper. You are not bound to satisfy any 
man's curiosity upon z. private matter, and 
upon my silence you may, I believe, depend 
entirely. As to other passages I have no 
favour or affection, so let all go. It should 
be copied over in a better hand. 

If any objections are raised, which are 
answered in my third letter, you will, I am 
sure, answer for me, so far forth, ore tejius. 
JUNIUS. 

By all means let it be copied. — This 
manuscript is for private use only. 



No. ^Z' 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

Sir, Monday!^ 

When I wrote to you on Saturday, 
it did not occur to me that your own ad- 
vertisement had already informed the pub- 
lic of your receiving two letters ; your 
omitting the preamble to the second letter 
would therefore be to no purpose. 

In my opinion you should not wish to 
decline the appearance of being particu- 
larly addressed in that letter. It is calcu- 
lated to give you dignity with the public. 

^ Written on it by Mr Wilkes, ' Received Sept. 
23, 1771.' ^ Ibid. 

3 When Mr Wilkes was prosecuted in the year 
1764, for publishing the North Briton, No. 45, 
lord Mansfield issued an order for Mr Wilkes's 
attorney or solicitor to attend at his house, on 
the morning previous to the trial, * to show cause 
why the information in this cause should not be 



There is more in it than perhaps you are 
aware of. Depend upon it, the perpetual 
union of Wilkes and mob does you no service. 
Not but that I love and esteem the mob. — 
It is your interest to keep up dignity and 
gravity besides. I would not make myself 
cheap by walking the streets so much as 
you do. Verbiun sat. 



No. 74. 

TO JUNIUS. 

Sir, Wednesday, Sept. 25. 

Yesterday I attended the meet- 
ing of the Society of the Bill of Rights, 
and laid before them the letter, which I had 
the honour of receiving from you on the 
7th of September. The few lines of the 
preamble I omitted, the word ridiculous, 
according to your directions, and a very few 
more lines towards the conclusion. All the 
rest was a faithful transcript, the exact 
tenor ^^ The season of the year occasioned 
the meeting to be ill attended. Only eleven 
members were present. The following re- 
solution passed imanimously : ' That Mr 
Wilkes be desired to transmit to Junius 
the thanks of the Society for his letter, and 
to assure him, that it was received with all 
the respect due to his distinguished charac- 
ter and abihties.' Soon after my fever 
obliged me to return home, and I have not 
heard of anything further being done ; but 
Mr Lee told me he thought the letter capa- 
ble of a full answer, which he meant, on a 
future day, to submit to the Society, and 
would previously commimicate to me. The 
letter is left in the hands of Mr Reynolds, 
who has the care of the other papers of the 
Society, with directions to permit every 
member to peruse, and even transcribe it, 
on the promise of non-publication. Some 
particular expressions appeared rather too 



amended by striking out the word purport, in 
the several places where it is mentioned in the 
said information (except in the first place), and 
inserting, instead thereof, the word tenor.' The 
Chief Justice was accused of having suggested 
this alteration, and several objections were taken 
to it, which, in argument, were overruled by the 
Court. 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



105 



harsh and grating to the ears of some of the 
members. 

Surely, Sir, nothing in the advertisement 
I inserted in the Public Advertiser, could 
lead to the idea of the two letters I men- 
tioned coming from Junius. I entreat him 
to peruse once more that guarded adver- 
tisement. I hope that Mr Bull's and my 
address of Saturday, was approved where 
I most desire it should be thought of favour- 
ably. I know it made our enemies wince 
in the most tender part. 

I am too ill to-day to add more. 

JOHN WILKES. 



No. 75. 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

Sir, xdth October, 1771. 

I CANNOT help expressing to you 
my thanks and approbation of your letter 
of this day.i I think it proper, manly, and 
to the puipose. In these altercations 
nothing can be more useful, than to pre- 
serve dignity and sajig froid— fort iter in re, 
suaviter i?i modo, increases both the force 
and the severity. Your conduct to Air 



^ This was a long address from Mr Wilkes to 
the livery of London, in his own defence, from 
an attack which had been made upon him by Mr 
Alderman Townshend. We shall extract such 
parts of it as are more particularly alluded to by 
Junius in this letter. 

^ ' Mr Townshend asks, " Does he (Mr Wilkes) 
allow one man in the court of aldermen to be 
worthy of your confidence, except himself and 
Mr Crosby? " Let me state the question about 
Mr Sawbridge. I\Ir Wilkes has declared under 
his hand, in all the public papers, "No man 
can honour Mr Sawbridge more than I do, for 
every public and private virtue, which constitutes 
a £-reat and amiable character. " Was this praise 
cold or penurious ? Was it not deserving a better 
return than it seems to have found ? Is not such 
a character -worthy of your confidence V Mr 
Wilkes's letter of Oct. 15. 

3 ' Mr Morris told us at the Bill of Rights, 
that when he pressed Mr Townshend about the 
affair of the printers, his answer was, that he did 
not find he should be supported by any great 
man, and otherwise it would be iviprudent, 
therefore did not chuse to act in it. The pru- 
dent I\Ir Townshend may wait the consent of , 
great men. I will on a national call follow 
instantly the line of my dut}', regardless of their 
applause or censure. Public spirit and virtue are 
seldom in the company of his Lordship or his 



Sawbridge is every thing I could wish. 2 
Be assured, you will find it both honourable 
and judicious. Had it been adopted a 
little sooner, you might have returned him 
and Crosby, and taken the whole merit of 
it to yourself. If I am truly informed of 
Air S.'s behaviour on the hustings, I must 
confess it does not satisfy me. But per- 
severance, management, and determined 
good humour, will set every thing right, 
and, in the end, break the heart of Air 
Horne. Nothing can be more true than 
what you say about great vien? They are 
indeed a worthless, pitiful race. Chatham 
has gallantly thrown away the scabbard, 
and never flinched. From that moment I 
began to like him. 

I see we do not agree about the strict 
right of pressing.'* If you are as sincere as 
I am, we shall not quarrel about a differ- 
ence of opinion. I shall say a few words 
to-morrow on this subject, under the signa- 
ture of Philo Junius. — The letters under 
that name have been hastily drawn up, but 
the principles are tenable. I thought your 
letter about the military very proper and 
well drawn.5 JUNIUS. 



Grace. [The case of the printers is detailed in 
note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. XCII.] 
* « » * » 

' Has not, by the conduct of your magistrates, 
a complete victory been gained over the usurped 
powers both of the Crown and the House of 
Commons ? The two questions had been fre- 
quently agitated among the friends of liberty, 
even while I remained at the King's Bench. 
When the city and the nation had clearly decided 
in favour of the cause, the great mett followed, 
as they generally do, joined the public cry, and 
thronged to the Tower to pay their tardy tribute 
of praise to the persecuted patriots. The busi- 
ness had been completed without their assist- 
ance. In all such cases I am persuaded we shall 
find, that the people will be obliged to do their 
own business ; but if it succeeds, they may be 
sure of the concurrence and applause of the 
great, and their even entering the most loathsome 
prisons or dungeons — on a short visit of parade.' 
Mr Wilkes's letter of Oct. 15. 

^ 'As a good Englishman and citizen, I thanked 
my brethren Sawbridge and Oliver for having so 
nobly discharged their duty as aldermen in the 
business of press warrants, on which I expatiated 
as the most cruel species of general warrants.' 
Id. 

5 A few days previous to Messrs Wilkes and 
Bull entering upon their ofi&ce of sheriffs of Lon- 



io6 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



No. 76. 

TO JUNIUS. 

Sir, Oct. 17, 1771. 

I AM not yet recovered, and to-day 
have been harassed with complaints against 
the greatest villains out of hell, the bailiffs ; 
but so very polite and friendly a letter as 
JUNIUS'S of yesterday, demands my earliest 
and warmest acknowledgments. I only 
take up the pen to say, that I think myself 
happy in this approbation, that a line of 
applause from him gives the same brisk 
circulation to my spirits, as a kiss from 
Chloe, and that I mean soon to communi- 
cate to him a project of importance. — I will 
skirmish with the great almost every day in 
some way or other. Does Junius approve 
the following manoeuvre, instead of going 
in a gingerbread chariot to yawn through a 
dull sermon at St Paul's. 

Old Bailey, Oct. o.^th, 1771. 
' Mr Sheriff Wilkes presents his 
duty to the Lord Mayor, and asks his 
Lordship's leave to prefer the real service 
of his country to-morrow in the administra- 
tion of justice liere, to the vain parade on 
the anniversary of the accession of a prince, 
under whose inauspicious government an 
universal discontent prevails among the 



don, they addressed a short letter to the livery, 
containing a paragraph respecting the military, 
of which the following is a copj' : — 

' We have observed with the deepest concern, 
that a military force has, on several late occa- 
sions, been employed by an unprincipled ad- 
ministration, under the pretence of assisting the 
civil power in carrying the sentence of the laws 
into execution. The conduct of the present 
sheriffs, in the remarkable case of the two un- 
happy men who suffered in July, near Bethnal 
Green, was truly patriotic. We are determined 
to follow so meritorious an exainple, and as that 
melancholy part of our office will commence in a 
very few days, we take this opportunity of de- 
claring, that as the constitution has entrusted us 
with the whole power of the county, we will not, 
during our sheriffalty, suffer any part of the 
army to interfere, or even to attend, as on 
many former occasions, on the pretence of 
aiding or assisting the civil magistrate. This 
resolution we declare to the public, and to ad- 
ministration, to prevent, during our continuance 



people, and who still leaves the most in- 
tolerable grievances of his subjects unre- 
dressed.' — This card to be published at 
length. Will Junius suggest any alteration 
or addition ? It is a bold step.— The ses- 
sions will not be ended on the 25th, and it 
is the duty of the sheriff to attend. I will 
follow all your hints about Mr Sawbridge. 
— I am sorry to differ so much from you 
about press warrants. I own that I have 
warmly gone through that opposition upon 
the clear conviction that every argument 
alledged for the legality of the press war- 
rant would do equally well for ship money. 
I beheve Junius as sincere as myself ; I 
will therefore be so far from quarrelling 
with him for any difference of opinion, that, 
when I find we disagree, I will act with 
double caution, and some distrust of the 
certainty of my being clearly in the right. 

1 hope the sheriffs letter to Mr Aker- 
man has your approbation. Does Junius 
wish for any dinner or ball tickets for the 
lord mayor's day, for himself, or friends, or 
a favourite, or Junia? The day will be 
worth observation. Whether creta an car- 
bone jwtandus, I do not know ; but the 
people., Sir, the people are the sight. How 
happy should I be to see my Portia here 
dance a graceful minuet with Junius Bru- 
tus ! but Junius is inexorable and I sub- 



in office, the sending of any detachments from 
the regular forces on such a service, and the pos- 
sibility of all future alarming disputes. The 
civil power of this country we are sure is able to 
support itself and a good government. The 
magistrate, with the assistance of those in his 
jurisdiction, is by experience known to be strong 
enough to enforce all legal commands, without 
the aid of a standing arm3^ Where that is not 
the case, a nation must sink into an absolute 
military government, and every thing valuable 
to the subject be at the mercy of the soldiery 
and their commander. We leave to our brave 
countrymen of the zxvixy the glory of conquering 
our foreign enemies. We pledge ourselves to 
the public for the faithful and exact discharge of 
our duty in every emergency without their 
assistance. We desire to save them a service we 
know they detest, and we take on ourselves the 
painful task of those unpleasing scenes, which 
our office calls upon us to superintend. The laws 
of our country shall, in all instances during our 
sheriffalty, be solely enforced by the authority 
and vigour of the civil magistrate.' 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



107 



mit. I would send your tickets to Wood- 
fall. 

To-morrow I go with the lord mayor 
and my brother sheriff to Rochester to take 
up our freedoms. We return on Sunday 
night. 

1 entreat of Junius to favour me with 
every idea, which occurs to him for the 
common cause, in every particular relative 
to my conduct. He shall find me no less 
grateful than ductile. 

JOHN WILKES. 



No. 77. 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

Londoft, 21 October, 1771. 
Many thanks for your obliging 
offer ; — bui alas ! my age and figure would 
do but little credit to my partner. — I 
acknowledge the relation between Cato and 
Portia, but in truth I see no connexion 
between Junius and a minuet. 

You shall have my opinion whenever you 
think proper to ask it, freely, honestly, and 
heartily. — If I were only a party man, I 
should naturally concur in any enterprise, 
likely to create a bustle without risk or 
trouble to myself. But I love the cause inde- 
pendent of persons, and I wish well to Mr 
Wilkes independent of the caiise. Feeling, 
as I really do, for others where my own safety 
is provided for, the danger to which I expose 
a simple printer, afflicts and distresses me. It 
lowers me to myself to draw another into a 
hazardous situation which I cannot partake 
of with him. This consideration will ac- 
count for my abstaining from * * * * 
***** so long, and for the un- 
deser\'ed moderation with which I have 
treated him. I know my ground thoroughly 
when I affirm that he alone is the mark. It 
is not Bute, nor even the Princess Dowager. 
It is ********** ** 
whom every honest man should detest, and 
every brave man should attack. Some 
measures of dignity and prudence must 
nevertheless be preserved for our own sakes. 
I think your intended message to the lord 
mayor is more spirited than judicious, and 



that it may be attended with consequences 
which (compared with the single purpose 
of************) 
are not worth hazarding — 71011 est tanti — • 
consider it is not Junius or Jack Wilkes, 
but a grave sheriff [ior grave you should be) 
who marks his entrance into office with a 
direct outrage to the * * * * * * 
**********; that it is 
only an outrage, and leads to nothing. — 
Will not courtiers take advantage ? Will 
not Whigs be offended? And whether 
offended or not, will not all parties pretend 
to condemn you ? If iiieasures a?id not men 
has a7iy meaning (and I own it has very 
little), it must hold particularly in the case 
of********; and if truth 
and reason be on one side, and all the com- 
mon-place topics on the other, can you 
doubt to which side the multitude will 
incline ? Besides that it is too early to begin 
this kind of attack, I confess I am anxious 
for your safety. I know that in the ordi- 
nary course of law they cannot hurt you ; 
but did the idea of a Bill of Banishment 
never occur to you? And don't you think a 
demonstration of this kind on your part 
might furnish government with a specious 
pretence for destroying you at once, by a 
summary proceeding? Consider the measure 
coolly and then determine. 

If these loose thoughts should not weigh 
with you as much as I could wish, I would 
then recommend a little alteration in the 
message. I would have it stated thus : — 

'Princes Coiirt, 24 October, 1771. 
' Mr Wilkes presents his duty to 
the Lord Mayor, and flatters himself he 
shall be honoured with his Lordship's 
approbation, if he prefers the real service of 
his country to-morrow in the administration 
of justice at the Old Bailey, to the vain 
parade of a procession to St Paitl's. — With 
the warmest attachment to the House of 
Hanover, and the most determined alle- 
giance to the chief magistrate, he hopes it 
will not be thotight incumbent on him to 
take an active part in celebrating the acces- 
sion of a prince, under whose inauspicious 



io8 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



reign the English constitution has been 
grossly and deliberately violated, the civil 
rights of the people no less daringly invaded, 
and their humble petitions for redress re- 
jected with contempt.' — 

In the first part, to ask a ma?z s leave to 
prefer the real service of our country to a 
vain parade, seems, if serious, too servile ; — 
if jest, unseasonable, and rather approaching 
to burlesque. — The rest appears to me not 
less strong than your own words, and better 
guarded in point of safety, which you neg- 
lect too much. — I am now a little hurried, 
and shall write to you shortly upon some 
other topics. 

JUNIUS. 

No. 78. 

TO JUNIUS, 
Prince's Court, Monday Morning, Nov. 4. 
On my return home last night I 
had the very great pleasure of reading the 
Dedication and Preface which Mr Wood- 
fall left for me. I am going with the city 
officers to invite the little great to the cus- 
tard on Saturday. Perditur hoc inter 
misero lux. I shall only add, accepi, legi, 
probavi. I am much honoured by the 
poUte attention of Junius .1 



No. ^g. 

TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

6 November, 1771. 
I ENTREAT you to procure for me 
copies of the informations against Eyre be- 
fore the lord mayor. I presume they were 
taken in writing. If not, I beg you will 
favour me with the most exact account of 
the substance of them, and any observa- 
tions of your own that you think material. 
If I am right in my facts, I answer for my 
law, and njean to attack lord Mansfield as 
soon as possible. 

My American namesake is plainly a man 
of abilities, though I think a little unreason- 



^ Upon this letter was written by Mr Wilkes, 
'On returning Junius the Dedication and Pre- 
face he sent me. ' 



able, when he insists upon more than an 
absolute surrender of the fact. I agree with 
him that it is a hardship on the Americans 
to be taxed by the British legislature ; but 
it is a hardship inseparable in theory from 
the condition of colonists, in which they 
have voluntarily placed themselves. If 
emigration be no crime to deserve punish- 
ment, it is certainly no virtue to claim ex- 
emption ; and however it may have proved 
eventually beneficial, the mother country 
was but little obliged to the intentions of 
the first emigrants. But, in fact, change 
of place does not exempt from subjection : 
— the members of our factories settled 
under foreign governments, and whose vol- 
untary banishment is much more laudable 
with regard to the mother country, are 
taxed with the laws of consulage. Au 
resie, I see no use in fighting this question 
in the newspapers, nor have I time. You 
may assure Dr Lee, that to my heart and 
understanding the names of American and 
Englishman are synonymous, and that as 
to any future taxation of America, I look 
upon it as near to impossible as the highest 
improbabiUty can go, 

I hope that, since he has opposed me 
where he thinks me wrong, he will be 
equally ready to assist me when he thinks 
me right. Besides the fallibihty natural to 
us all, no man writes under so many disad- 
vantages as I do. I cannot consult the 
learned, I cannot directly ask the opinion 
of my acquaintance, and in the newspapers 
I never am assisted. 

Those who are conversant with books, 
well know how^ often they mislead us, when 
we have not a living monitor at hand to 
assist us in comparing practice witli theory. 



No. 80. 
TO Junius. 
Prince s Coiirt, Wednesday, Nov. 6. 

Sir, 

I DO not delay a moment giving 
you the information you wish. I enclose a 
copy of Eyre's commitment. Nothing else in 
this business has been reduced to writing. 



JUNIUS AND MR WILKES. 



109 



The examination was before the sitting 
justice, alderman Hallifax, at Guildhall ; 
and it is not usual to take it in writing on 
account of the multiplicity of business there. 
The paper was found upon him. He was 
asked what he had to say in his defence ; 
his answer was, I hope you will bail me. 
Mr Holder, the clerk, answered, That is 
impossible. There never was an instance 
of it, when the person was taken in the fact, 
or the goods found upon him. I believe 
Holder's law is right. Alderman Hallifax 
likewise granted a search warrant prior to 
the examination. At Eyre's lodgings many 
more quires of paper were found, all marked 
on purpose, from a suspicion of Eyre. 
After Eyre had been some time at Wood 
Street Compter, a key was found in his 
room there, which appears to be a key to 
the closet at Guildhall, from whence the 
paper was stolen. The lord mayor re- 
fused to bail Eyre, but I do not find that 
any fresh examination was taken at the 
Mansion-house. The circumstances were 
well known. I was present at the examina- 
tion before Hallifax, but as sheriff could 
not interfere, only I whispered Hallifax he 
could not bail Eyre. A7iglus in to-day's 
Public Advertiser told some particulars 1 
had mentioned. I did not know of that 
letter; it is Mr Bernard's of Berkeley Square. 
As to the Americans, I declare I know no 
difference between an inhabitant of Boston 
in Lincolnshire, and of Boston in New 
England. I honour the Americans ; but 
our ancestors who staid and drove out the 
tyrant, are justly greater in merit and fame 
than those who fled and deserted their 
countrymen. Their future conduct has 
been a noble atonement, and their sons 
have much surpassed them. I will mention 
to Dr Lee what you desire. You shall 
have every communication you wish from 
me. Yet I beg Junius to reflect a moment. 
To whom am I now writing? I am all 
doubt and uncertainty, though not mistrust 
or suspicion. I should be glad to canvass 
freely every part of a great plan. I dare 
not write it to a man I do not know, of 
whose connexions I am totally ignorant. 



I differ with Junius in one point : I think 
by being concealed he has infinite advan- 
tages which I want. I am on the Indian 
coast, where, from the fire kindled round 
me, I am marked out to every hostile arrow 
which knows its way to me. Those who 
are in the dark are safe, from the want of 
direction of the pointless shaft. I followed 
JUNius's advice about the card on the an- 
niversary of the king's accession. I drop- 
ped the idea. I wish to know his senti- 
ments about certain projects against the 
usurped powers of the House of Lords. 
The business is too vast to write, too 
hazardous to communicate, to an unknown 
person. Junius will forgive me. What 
can be done ? — Alas ! where is the man, 
after all Wilkes has experienced, in whose 
friendly bosom he can repose his secret 
thoughts, his noble but most dangerous 
designs ? The person most capable he can 
have no access to, and all others he will not 
trust. I stand alone, isoU as the French 
call it, a single column, unpropped, and 
perhaps nodding to its fall. 

JOHN WILKES. 



No. 81. 



TO J. WILKES, ESQ. 

9 Nove?nber, ^771. 
I AM much obliged to you for 
your information about Eyre. The facts 
are as I understood them, and, with the 
blessing of God, I will pull Mansfield to 
the ground. 

Your offer to communicate your plan 
against the Lords was voluntary. Do now 
as you think proper. I have no resent- 
ments but against the common enemy, and 
will assist you in any way that you will 
suffer yourself to be assisted. When yoii 
have satisfied your understanding that there 
may be reasons why Junius should attack 
the King, the Minister, the Court of King's 
Bench, and the House of Commons, in the 
way that I have done, and yet should de- 
sert or betray the man who attacks the 
House of Lords, I would still appeal to 



PRIVATE LETTERS. 



your heart. Or if you have any scruples 
about that kind of evidence, ask that ami- 
able daughter whom you so implicitly con- 
fide in — Is it possible that Junius should 
betray me ? Do not conceive that I solicit 
new employment. I am overcome with the 
slavery of writing. 

Farewell. 



No. 82. 



TO JUNIUS. 
Princes Court, ntar Storey s Gate, 
Westminster, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1772. 
A NECESSARY attention to my 
health engrossed my time entirely in the 
few holidays I spent at Bath, and I am re- 
warded with being perfectly recovered. 
The repairs of the clay cottage, to which I 
am tenant for life, seem to have taken place 
very successfully ; and the building will 
probably last a few more years in tolerable 
condition. 

Yesterday I met the Supporters of the 
Bill of Rights at the London Tavern. Much 
discourse passed about the publication of 
JUNius's letter. Dr Lee and Mr Watkin 
Lewes, who were both suspected, fully ex- 
culpated themselves. I believe the publica- 
tion was owing to the indiscretion of Mr 
Patrick Cawdron, a Hnen-draper in Cheap- 
side, who showed it to his partner on the 
Saturday. The partner copied it on the 
Sunday, and the Monday following it ap- 
peared in the Morning Chronicle. The 
Gazetteer only copied it from thence. The 
Society directed a disavowal of their pub- 
lication of it to be sent to you, and are to 
take the letter into considerartion at the 
next meeting. I forgot to mention that Mr 
Cawdron keeps the papers of the Society. 

The winter campaign will begin with the 



next week, I believe that the sheriffs will 
have the old battle renewed with the Com- 
mons, and I suppose the lord mayor and 
the courtly aldermen will commit the printer 
for us to release. Another scene will pro- 
bably open with the Lords. Junius has 
observed, ' the arbitrary power they have 
assumed of imposing fines, and committing 
during pleasure, will now be exercised in 
its fullest extent.' The progress of the busi- 
ness I suspect will be this — a bitter libel 
against Pomfret, Denbigh, or Talbot, at- 
tacking the peer personally, not in his 
legislative or judicial capacity, will appear. 
His Lordship, passion's slave, will complain 
to the House. They will order the printer 
into custody, and set a heavy fine. The 
sheriffs the next morning will go to New- 
gate, examine the warrant of commitment, 
and, hke the angel to Peter, take the 
prisoner by the hand, and conduct him out 
of prison ; afterwards they will probably 
make their appeal to the public against the 
usurpation of their Lordships, and their 
entirely setting aside the power of juries in 
their proceedings. 

Are there more furious wild beasts to be 
found in the upper den than the three I 
have named? Miller, the printer of the 
London Evening Post, at No. 2, Queen's 
Head Passage, Paternoster Row, is the best 
man I know for this business. He will print 
whatever is sent him. He is a fine Oliveri- 
an soldier. I intend a manifesto with my 
name on Monday to give spirit to the 
printers, and to show them who will be their 
protector. I foresee it will make the two 
Houses more cautious, but it is necessary 
for our friends, and the others shall be 
baited till they are driven into the snare. 
Adieu. 

JOHN WILKES. 



LETTERS 



JUNIUS, 



CAREFULLY COLLATED WITH 

THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. 



DEDICATION 



ENGLISH NATION 



1 DEDICATE to You a collection 
of Letters, written by one of Yourselves for 
the common benefit of us all. They would 
never have grown to this size, without Your 
continued encouragement and applause.^ 
To me they originally owe nothing, but 
a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under 
Your care they have thriven. To You they 
are indebted for whatever strength or 
beauty they possess. When Kings and 
Ministers are forgotten, when the force and 
direction of personal satire is no longer 
understood, and when measures are only 
felt in their remotest consequences, this 
book will, I believe, be found to contain 
principles, worthy to be transmitted to pos- 
terity. When You leave the unimpaired, 
hereditary freehold to Your children, You 
do but half Your duty. Both liberty and 
property are precarious, unless the possess- 
ors have sense and spirit enough to defend 
them. — This is not the language of vanity. 
If I am a vain man, my gratification lies 
within a narrow circle. I am the sole de- 



^ Sec Private Letter, No. 5, in which the 
author, shortly after his appearance before the 
public under the signature of Junius, expresses 
an intention to discontinue writing under that 
name ; nor would he in all probability have 
persevered, but for the reason assigned above, 
— Edit. 

^ This must be understood only in general 
terms. From the following passage in Private 
Letter, No. 8, it is obvious that there were per- 



positary of my own secret, and it shall 
perish with me. 2 

If an honest, and, I may truly affirm, a 
laborious zeal for the public service has 
given me any weight in Your esteem, let me 
exhort and conjure You never to suffer an 
invasion of Your political constitution, how- 
ever minute the instance may appear, to 
pass by, without a determined, persevering 
resistance. One precedent creates another. 
They soon accumulate, and constitute law. 
What yesterday was fact, to-day is doc- 
trine. Examples are supposed to justify 
the most dangerous measures, and where 
they do not suit exactly, the defect is sup- 
plied by analogy. — Be assured that the 
laws, which protect us in our civil rights, 
grow out of the constitution, and that they 
must fall or flourish with it. This is not the 
cause of faction, or of party, or of any indi- 
vidual, but the common interest of every 
man in Britain. Although the King should 
continue to support his present system of 
government, the period is not very distant. 



sons to whom the writer unbosomed himself; 
although there is still every reason for believing 
that such persons formed, as he has expressed it 
above, only a 7mr7-ow circle. — 'The last letter 
you printed was idle and improper, and, I assure 
you, printed against fuy own opinion. The trt^th 
is, there are people about me, whom J would 
wish not to contradict, and who had rather see 
Junius in the papers, ever so improperly, than 
not at all.' — Edit. 



DEDICATION. 



"3 



at which You will have the means of re- 
dress in Your own power. It may be 
nearer perhaps than any of us expect, and I 
would warn you to be prepared for it. The 
King may possibly be advised to dissolve 
the present parliament a year or two before 
it expires of course, and precipitate a new 
election, in hopes of taking the nation by 
surprise. If such a measure be in agita- 
tion, this very caution may defeat or pre- 
vent it.i 

I cannot doubt that You will unanimously 
assert the freedom of election, and vindi- 
cate Your exclusive right to chuse Your 
representatives. But other questions have 
been started, on which Your determination 
should be equally clear and unanimous. 
Let it be impressed upon Your minds, let it 
be instilled into Your children, that the 
liberty of the press is the palladimn of all 
the civil, political, and religious rights of an 
Englishman, and that the right of juries to 
return a general verdict, in all cases what- 
soever, is an essential part of our constitu- 
tion, not to be controuled or limited by the 



^ The object to have been accomplished by- 
obtaining a new parliament does not appear to 
have been of sufficient force to have precipitated 
such a measure ; and was, in consequence, relin- 
quished : on which account the parUament in 
question was not dissolved till September 30th, 
1774, after having existed six years, four months, 
and twenty-one days. Many of the letters of 
Junius turning upon the elective franchise, and 
the necessity of triennial parliaments, the reader 
may not be displeased to see, at one view, the 
respective dates of the dissolution and re-as- 
sembling of the several parliaments during the 
present reign. 

Met. Dissolved. Existed. 

Y. M. D. 

26 Oct. 1760 20 March 1761 o 4 25 

19 May 1761 II March 1768 6 9 22 

ID May 1768 30 Sept. 1774 6 4 21 

29 Nov. 1774 I Sept. 1780 5 9 4 

31 Oct. 1780 25 March 1784 3 4 26 

18 May 1784 II June 1790 6 o 25 

ID Aug. 1790 20 Alay 1796 511 3 

12 July 1796 31 Dec. 1800^ \ 

UNITED KINGDOM, G.B. & I. f5 ^^ l8 

22 Jan. 1801 29 June 1802 •) 

31 Aug. 1802 24 Oct. 1806 4 2 25 

15 Dec. 1806 29 April 1807 o 4 15 

22 June 1807 29 Sept. 1812 5-3 7 
24 Nov. i8t2 

* Stat. 39-40 Geo. III. c. 67. Art. 4.— Edit. 



judges, nor in any shape questionable by 
the legislature. The power of King, Lords, 
and Commons is not an arbitrary power. 2 
They are the trustees, not the owners of 
the estate. The fee-simple is in US. They 
cannot alienate, they cannot waste. When 
we say that the legislature is supretne, we 
mean that it is the highest power known to 
the constitution : — that it is the highest 
in comparison with the other subordinate 
powers established by the laws. In this 
sense, the word supreme is relative, not 
absolute. The power of the legislature is 
limited, not only by the general rules of 
natural justice, and the welfare of the com- 
munity, but by the forms and principles of 
our particular constitution. If this doctrine 
be not true, we must admit, that King, 
Lords, and Commons have no rule to direct 
their resolutions, but merely their own will 
and pleasure. They might unite the legis- 
lative and executive power in the same 
hands, and dissolve the constitution by an 
act of parliament. But I am persuaded 
You will not leave it to the choice of seven 
hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by 
the crown, whether seven miUions of their 
equals shall be freemen or slaves. The 
certainty of forfeiting their own rights, when 
they sacrifice those of the nation, is no check 
to a brutal degenerate mind. Without in- 
sisting upon the extravagant concession 
made to Harry the Eighth, there are in- 



^ This positive denial, of an arbitrary power 
being vested in the legislature, is not in fact a 
new doctrine. When the earl of Lindsey, in the 
year 1675, brought a bill into the House of 
Lords, To preve7it the dangers which might 
arise fro7)i perso7is disaffected to governviefit, by 
which an oath and penalty was to be imposed 
upon the members of both Houses, it was affirmed, 
in a protest signed by twenty-three lay-peers 
(my lords the bishops were not accustomed to 
protest), ' That the privilege of sitting and voting 
in parliament w:is an honour they had by birth, 
and a right so inherent in them, and inseparable 
from them, that nothing could take it away, but 
what, by the law of the land, must withal take 
away their lives, and corrupt their blood.' — These 
nobl^ peers (whose names are a reproach to their 
posterity) have, in this instance, solemnly denied 
the power of parliament to alter the constitution. 
Under a particular proposition, they have as- 
serted a general truth, in which every man in 
England is concerned. 



114 



DEDICATION. 



stances, in the history of other countries, 
of a formal, deliberate surrender of the pub 
lie liberty into the hands of the sovereign. ! 
If England does not share the same fate, it 
is because we have better resources, than in 
the virtue of either House of parliament. 

I said that the liberty of the press is the 
palladium of all Your rights, and that the 
right of juries to return a general verdict is 
part of Your constitution. To preserve the 
whole system, You must correct Your legis- 
lature. With regard to any influence of 
the constituent over the conduct of the re- 
presentative, there is little difference be- 
tween a seat in parliament for seven years 
and a seat for life. The prospect of Your 
resentment is too remote; and although the 
last session of a septennial parliament be 
usually employed in courting the favour of 
the people, consider that, at this rate. Your 
representatives have six years for offence, 
and but one for atonement. A death-bed 
repentance seldom reaches to restitution. 
If you reflect that in the changes of admin- 
istration, which have marked and disgraced 
the present reign, although your warmest 
patriots have, in their turn, been invested 
with the lawful and unlawful authority of 
the crown, and though other reliefs or im- 
provements have been held forth to the 
people, yet that no one man in office has 
ever promoted or encouraged a bill for 
shortening the duration of parUaments, but 
that (whoever was minister) the opposition 
to this measure, ever since the septennial 



act passed, has been constant and uniform 
on the part of government, — You cannot 
but conclude, without the possibility of a 
doubt, that long parliaments are the found- 
ation of the undue influence of the crown. 
This influence answers every purpose of 
arbitrary power to the crown, with an ex- 
pense and oppression to the people, which 
would be unnecessary in an arbitrary go- 
vernment. The best of our ministers find 
it the easiest and most compendious mode 
of conducting the King's affairs ; and all 
ministers have a general interest in ad- 
hering to a system, which of itself is suffi- 
cient to support them in office, without any 
assistance from personal virtue, popularity, 
labour, abilities, or experience. It promises 
every gratification to avarice and ambition, 
and secures impunity. — These are truths 
unquestionable. — If they make no impres- 
sion, it is because they are too vulgar and 
notorious. But the inattention or indiffer- 
ence of the nation has continued too long. 
You are roused at last to a sense of Your 
danger. — The remedy will soon be in Your 
power. If Junius lives. You shall often be 
reminded of it. If, when the opportunity 
presents itself. You neglect to do Your duty 
to Yourselves and to your posterity, — to 
God and to Your country, — I shall have one 
consolation left, in common with the mean- 
est and basest of mankind, — Civil liberty 
may still last the life of 

JUNIUS. 



J 



PREFACE 



-The encouragement given to a 
multitude of spurious, mangled publications 
of the Letters of Junius, persuades me, 
that a complete edition, corrected and im- 
proved by the author, will be favourably- 
received. The printer will readily acquit 
me of any view to my own profit. ^ I un- 
dertake this troublesome task, merely to 
serve a man who has deserved well of me, 
and of the public ; and who, on my account, 
has been exposed to an expensive, tyran- 
nical prosecution. For these reasons, I 
give to Mr Henry Sampson Wood/all, and 
to him alone, my right, interest, and pro- 
perty in these letters, as fully and com- 
pletely, to all intents and purposes, as an 
author can possibly convey his property in 
his own works to another. 

This edition contains all the letters of 
Junius, Philo Junius, andof jzr William 
Draper and Mr Home to Junius, with 
their respective dates, and according to the 
order in which they appeared in the Public 
Advertiser.2 The auxiliary part of Philo 
Junius was indispensably necessary to 
defend or explain particular passages in 
Junius, in answer to plausible objections ; 
but the subordinate character is never 
guilty of the indecorum of praising his 
principal. The fraud was innocent, and I 
aUvays intended to explain it.^ The notes 
will be found not only useful, but necessary. 



^ See Private Letter, No. 59, and note ap- 
pended to it. — Edit. 

_ * From this order there are two or three devia- 
tions, but too trivial to be worth pointing out. 
— Edit. 

3 It was, in point of fact, publicly avowed by 



References to facts not "generally known, 
or allusions to the current report or opinion 
of the day, are in a little time unintelligible. 
Yet the reader will not find himself over- 
loaded with explanations. I was not born 
to be a commentator, even u.pon my own 
works. 

It remains to say a few words upon the 
liberty of the press. The daring spirit, by 
which these letters are supposed to be dis- 
tinguished, seems to require that something 
serious should be said in their defence. I 
am no lawyer by profession, nor do I pre- 
tend to be more deeply read than every 
English gentleman should be in the laws of 
his country. If therefore the principles I 
maintain are truly constitutional, I shall 
not think myself answered, though I should 
be convicted of a mistake in terms, or of 
misapplying the language of the law. I 
speak to the plain understanding of the. 
people, and appeal to their honest, liberal 
construction of me. 

Good men, to whom alone I address my- 
self, appear to me to consult their piety as 
little as their judgment and experience, 
when they admit the great and essential 
advantages accruing to society from the 
freedom of the press, yet indulge them- 
selves in peevish or passionate exclamations 
against the abuses of it. Betraying an un- 
reasonable expectation of benefits, pure 

the author, in the following notice inserted in 
the Public Advertiser, October 20, 1771 : 

'We have the author's consent to say, that the 
letters pubHshed in this paper under the signa- 
ture of Philo Junius, are written by Junius* 
— Edit. 



ii6 



PREFACE. 



and entire, from any human institution, 
they in effect arraign the goodness of Pro- 
vidence, and confess that they are dis- 
satisfied with the common lot of humanity. 
In the present instance they really create 
to their own minds, or greatly exaggerate, 
the evil they complain of. The laws of 
England provide, as effectually as any 
human laws can do, for the protection of 
the subject, in his reputation, as well as in 
his person and property. If the characters 
of private men are insulted or injured, a 
double remedy is open to them, by action 
and indictment. If, through indolence, 
false shame, or indifference, they will not 
appeal to the laws of their country, they 
fail in their duty to society, and are unjust 
to themselves. If, from an unwarrantable 
distrust of the integrity of juries, they 
would wish to obtain justice by any mode 
of proceeding, more summary than a trial 
by their peers, I do not scruple to affirm, 
that they are in effect greater enemies to 
themselves, than to the libeller they pro- 
secute. 

With regard to strictures upon the cha- 
racters of men in office and the measures 
of government, the case is a httle different. 
A considerable latitude must be allowed in 
the discussion of public affairs, or the liberty 
of the press will be of no benefit to society. 
As the indulgence of private malice and 
personal slander should be checked and 
resisted by every legal means, so a constant 
examination into the characters and con- 
duct of ministers and magistrates should 
be equally promoted and encouraged. 
They, who conceive that our newspapers 
are no restraint upon bad men, or impedi- 
ment to the execution of bad measures, 
know nothing of this country. In that 
state of abandoned servility and prostitu- 
tion, to which the undue influence of the 
crown has reduced the other branches of 

^ The case of Wilkes here alluded to is his 
prosecution for having written an obscene 
parody on Pope's Essay on Man, which he called 
' An Essay on Woman.' Almon was prosecuted 
merely for having sold in a magazine, entitled 
The London Museum, which he did not print, a 
transcript of Junius's Letter to the King, first 



the legislature, our ministers and magis- 
trates have in reality little punishment to 
fear, and few difficulties to contend with, 
beyond the censure of the press, and the 
spirit of resistance which it excites among 
the people. While this censorial power is 
maintained, to speak in the words of a most 
ingenious foreigner, both minister and 
magistrate is compelled, in almost every 
instance, to chuse between his duty and his 
reputation. A dilemma of this kind, per- 
petually before him, will not indeed work a 
miracle upon his heart, but it will assuredly 
operate, in some degree, upon his conduct. 
At all events, these are not times to admit 
of any relaxation in the little disciphne we 
have left. 

But it is alledged, that the hcentiousness 
of the press is carried beyond all bounds of 
decency and truth ; — that our excellent 
ministers are continually exposed to the 
public hatred or derision ; — that, in prose- 
cutions for libels on government, juries are 
partial to the popular side ; and that, in the 
most flagrant cases, a verdict cannot be 
obtained for the King. — If the premises 
were admitted, I should deny the conclu- 
sion. It is not true that the temper of the 
times has, in general, an undue influence 
over the conduct of juries. On the con- 
trary, many signal instances may be pro- 
duced of verdicts returned for the King, 
when the inchnations of the people led 
strongly to an undistinguishing opposition 
to government. Witness the cases of Mr 
Wilkes and Mr Almon.'^ In the late pro- 
secutions of the printers of my address to a 
great personage, the juries were never 
fairly dealt with. — Lord Chief Justice 
Mansjield, conscious that the paper in 
question contained no treasonable or libel- 
lous matter, and that the severest parts of 
it, however painful to the King, or offen- 
sive to his servants, were strictly true, 

published In the Public Advertiser, and thence 
copied into a variety of other newspapers ; and 
the result was a verdict against him, although it 
did not appear to the court that he was privy to 
the sale, or even knew that the magazine, sold at 
his shop, contained the Letter to the King. 
—Edit. 



PREFACE. 



:i7 



would fain have restricted the jury to the 
finding of special facts, which, as to guilty 
or 7iot guilty, were merely indifferent. 
This particular motive, combined with his 

^ Memorable as this charge is on various 
accounts, and especially as having laid the found- 
ation for a very warm and animated discussion 
both in and out of parliament, it is very extraor- 
dinary that it is no where reported in our 
senatorial documents, and is indeed difficult to be 
obtained from any other quarter. The fact is, 
that although it was laid by lord Mansfield on 
the table of the House of Lords, when sum- 
moned at his request to take it into consideration, 
yet as he did not make any express motion upon 
the subject, it was not entered into the journals, 
and was only left with the clerk for any noble 
lord to take a copy of it, who was desirous of so 
doing. The reader, therefore, will feel gratified 
by being put into possession of the charge, 
together with lord Camden's interrogatories in 
regard to it, proposed to the lord chief justice 
in his proper place in the Upper House, and to 
which the latter did not chuse to make any reply. 
To these it may be also advantageous to subjoin a 
summary of the speeches of the late Mr Fox and 
Mr Burke upon the same subject, when intro- 
duced into the House of Commons, as containing, 
in a condensed form, the argument of the oppo- 
site sides of the question. Mr Fox, it is well 
known, was, at this period, in favour of the 
ministry ; but the political error he then laboured 
under, he nobly redeemed a few years after- 
wards, and amply atoned for to the public, by 
the excellent and truly constitutional bill 'to 
remove doubts respecting the functions of juries 
in cases of libel,' introduced into the senate in the 
session of 1791, as more particularly noticed in 
another part of this work, and which (by his in- 
defatigable perseverance was at length carried 
through the legislature) has nullified lord Mans- 
field's doctrine, and set the important question 
completely at rest. 

Mr Woodfall, as a party concerned, modestly 
forbore to offer any statement of this celebrated 
trial in the Public Advertiser, in consequence of 
which the writer is obliged to avail himself of the 
following extract, though very imperfectly given, 
from a contemporary journal. 

An accoimt of the trial at Guildhall of the 

orig-tnal publisher of JUNIUS'S Letter to t'le 

Ki7ig. 

Yesterday morning, [June 13, 1770,] about 
nine o'clock, came on before lord Mansfield in 
the Court of King's Bench at Guildhall, the 
trial of Mr Woodfall, the original printer of 
JuNius's letter In the Public Advertiser of 
December 19. C)nly seven of the special jury 
attended, viz. William Bond, foreman ; Peter 
Cazalet, Alexander Peter Allen, Frederick 
Commerell, Hermen Meyer, John Thomas, and 
Barrlngton Buggin. 

Upon which the following five talesmen were 
taken out of the box, viz. William Hannard, 



general purpose to contract the power of 
juries, will account for the charge he de- 
livered in Woodfall s trial. ^ He told the 



Paul Verges, William Sibley, William Willett, 
and William Davis. 

The trial was opened by Mr Wallis. 

Nathaniel Crowder swore he bought the paper 
of Mr Woodfall's publishing servant, whom he 
named. 

Mr Harris proved that the duty for the adver- 
tisements and stamps were paid by Mr Woodfall. 
And 

A clerk of sir John Fielding proved, by a 
receipt from Mr Woodfall, his concern in and for 
the paper. 

The publication and direction of the paper by 
Mr Woodfall being thus proved, 

Lord Mansfield, In his charge, told the jury, 
That there were only two points for their con- 
sideration : the first, the printing and publishing 
the paper In question ; the second, the sense and 
meaning of It : That as to the charges of its 
being malicious, seditious, &c., they were infer- 
ences in law about which no evidence need be 
given, any more than that part of an Indictment 
need be proved by evidence, which charges a 
man with being moved by the instigation of the 
Devil : That therefore the printing and sense of 
the paper were alone what the jury had to con- 
sider of; and that if the paper should really con- 
tain no breach of the law, that was a matter 
which might afterwards be moved In arrest of 
judgment : That he had no evidence to sum up 
to them, as the defendant's counsel admitted the 
printing and publication to be well proved : That 
as to the sense, they had not called in doubt the 
manner in which the dashes In the paper were 
filled up In the record, by giving any other sense 
to the passages ; if they had, the jury would 
have been to consider which application was the 
true one, that charged In the Information, or 
suggested by the defendant: That the jury 
might now compare the paper with the Informa- 
tion : That If they did not find the application 
wrong, they must find the defendant guilty ; and 
if they did find it wrong, they must acquit him : 
That this was not the time for alleviation or ag- 
gravation, that being for future consideration : 
That every subject was under the controul of the 
law, and had a right to expect from It protection 
for his person, his property, and his good 
name : That if any man offended the laws, he was 
amenable to them, and was not to be censured or 
punished, but in a legal course : That any per- 
son libelled had a right either to bring a civil or 
a criminal prosecution : That In the latter, 
which Is by Information or Indictment, it Is Im- 
material whether the publication be false or true : 
1'hat It Is no defence to say it is true, because It 
Is a breach of the peace, and therefore criminal ; 
but In a civil prosecution, it is a defence to say 
the charges In the publication are true ; because 
the plaintiff there sues only for a pecuniary satis- 
faction to himself; and that this is the distinc- 
tion as to that nature of defence. — His Lordship 



ii8 



PREFACE. 



jury, in so many words, that they had I printing and publishing, and whether or 
nothing to determine, except the fact of no the blanks or innuendoes were properly 



said, he was afraid it was too true that few 
characters in the king^dom escaped libels : That 
many were very injuriously treated — and if so, 
that the best way to prevent it was by an appli- 
cation to the law, which is open to every man : 
That the liberty of the press consisted in every ' 
man having the power to publish his sentiments 
without first applying for a licence to any one ; , 
but if any man published what was against law, i 
he did it at his peril, and was answerable for it '■ 
in the same manner as he who suffers his hand to \ 
commit an assault, or his tongue to utter bias- j 
phemy.' _ I 

Between eleven and twelve the jury withdrew; \ 
at four the court adjourned; and a little after \ 
nine the jury waited on lord Mansfield at his . 
house in Bloomsbury-square, with their verdict, i 
which was Guilty of printing and publishing I 
ONLY. 

This charge ha\ing been laid upon the table of 
the House of Lords, December lo, 1770, by the ' 
lord chief justice, the following questions were | 
put to him, in his place, by lord Camden, on the j 
day ensuing. 

1. Does the opinion mean to declare, that upon ' 
the general issue of Not Guilty, in the case of a \ 
seditious libel, the jury have no right, by law, to \ 
examine the innocence or criminality of the ' 
paper, if they think fit, and to form their ver- 
dict upon such examination ? 

2. Does the opinion mean to declare, that in 
the case above-mentioned, when the jury have 
delivered in their verdict, Guilty, that this ver- 
dict has found the fact only and not the law? 

3. Is it to be understood by this opinion, that 
if the jury come to the bar, and say that they 
find the printing and publishing, but that the 
paper is no libel, that in that case the jury have 
found the defendant guilty generally, and the 
verdict must be so entered up ? 

4. Whether the opinion means to %'a.y, that if 
the judge, after giving his opinion of the inno- 
cence or criminality of the paper, should leave 
the consideration of that matter, together with 
the printing and publishing, to the jury, such a 
direction would be contrary to law ? 

5. I beg leave to ask, whether dead, and living 
judges then absent, did declare their opinions in 
open court, and whether the noble lord has any 
note of such opinions ? 

6. Whether they declared such opinions, after 
solid arguments, or upon any point judicially 
before them ? 

To these queries lord Mansfield made no reply, 
briefly observing, that he would not answer in- 
terrogatories. 

The subject was introduced into the Lower 
House, December 6, 1770, on a motion made by 
ISIr Serjeant Glynn, 'That a committee should be 
appointed to enquire into the administration of 
criminal justice, and the proceedings of the 
judges in Westminster-hall, particularly in cases 



relating to the liberty of the press, and the con- 
stitutional power and duty of juries.' 

In the course of the discussion, the speakers 
on both sides alluded not only to the charge in 
Mr Woodfall's case, but also to Mr baron 
Smythe's conduct in trying a Scotch Serjeant at 
Guildford, which will be found more particularly 
detailed in the editor's note to JuNius's Letter 
LXVIII. Amongst the chief speakers on this 
occasion were, as we have already observed, on 
the side of the ministry, Mr Fox, and on that of 
the people, Mr Burke. The following summary 
of their argument, which in truth contains the 
general argument of the rest, is extracted from a 
pamphlet entitled Vox Senat/ls, printed previous 
to the contest which soon afterwards ensued, be- 
tween the House of Commons and the printers, 
respecting the publication of parliamentary de- 
bates, and which, in a great measure, led the 
way to that controversy. The speeches in this 
pamphlet were altogether reported by the late 
Mr Wm Woodfall, whose strength of memory, 
nice accuracy, and rigid impartiality, were 
equally subjects of commendation, and held in 
the highest esteem, by the members of both 
Houses of parliament, to whatever party they 
might belong, during the many years that he 
continued to exercise his talents in that most 
laborious, and we trust we may a id, most im- 
portant branch of public duty. 
Mr Fox spoke as follows : — 
' We are told by the abettors / f this motion, 
that jealousies, murmurs, and - uscontents in- 
crease and multiply throughout the nation ; that 
the people are under terrible apprehensions that 
the law is perverted, the juries are deprived of 
their constitutional powers, that the courts of 
justice are not sound and untainted ; in a word, 
that the judges have, like a dozen of monstrous 
Patagonian giants, either swallowed, or are 
going to swallow up both law and gospel. And 
how do they prove the truth of these allegations ? 
The manner is pleasant enough. They refer us 
to their own libellous remonstrances, and to 
those infamous lampoons and satires, which they 
have taken care to write and circulate. They 
modestly substitute themselves in the place of 
the nation, and call their own complaints the 
grievances of England. Their meaning is plain 
enough, and we understand perfectly how all 
their grievances might be redressed. For my 
part I am not disposed to take the voice of a 
miserable faction for the voice of my country. 
Were the people really dissatisfied, I should be 
glad to know how I am to ascertain the reality 
of that dissatisfaction ? I must freely confess, 
that I know no other way but that of consulting 
this House. Here the people are represented, 
and here their voice expressed. There is no 
other criterion but the majority of this assembly, 
by which we can judge of their sentiments. 
This man, in order to answer one purpose, and 



PREFACE. 



119 



filled up in the information ; — but that, ' crime or not, was no matter of considera- 
whether the defendant had committed a tion to twelve men, who yet, upon their 



that man, in order to answer another, will tell I 
you that a general cry has gone abroad against 
certain men and measures ; but will you be so [ 
credulous as to take him upon his word, when | 
you can easily penetrate his interested views and 
iind him the original and prime mover of all the ; 
clamour? I can easily trace the authors of the 
outcry raised against the judges; and I would 
point them out, had not they, as well as their 
selfish ends, been already exposed in all their i 
deformity. Why, then, should we hesitate to put j 
a negative upon a question which sprung from | 
such a low source ? from dirt it came, and to dirt 
let it return. As to mj^self, I certainly will, as I 
can never acknowledge for the voice of the 
nation, what is not echoed by the majority of the 
House ; and I do not find that the majority of us 
entertain any suspicions, much less terrible ap- 
prehensions, of the judges ; though, if there 
were any just foundation for complaint, we must 
certainly have been better informed of it than the 
people. 

* Indeed if the adoption of this enquiry would 
answer any good purpose, I should not be such a 
violent opposer, convinced as I am that the 
judges are blameless. But I am fully persuaded, 
that would not be the case. For, as I have 
shown, it would be an attempt to remove discon- 
tents which do not exist but among those who 
have generated, fostered, and reared them up to 
their present magnitude, and would not, there- 
fore, be satisfied, though Justice, though Astrea 
herself, should descend naked from heaven to 
exculpate our judges. And what is more, it 
would, on their own principles, prove fruitless 
and nugatory, even if we suppose the people to 
be really discontented. For what have thej' 
been doing for these two last years, but ringing 
constantly in our ears the contempt in which we 
are held by the people ? have they not made 
these walls echo with the terms of reproach, 
which they alledged were cast upon us by men 
of every degree, by high and low, rich and poor, 
learned and unlearned? were we not, and are 
we not still, according to their account, held in 
universal detestation and abhorrence ? does not 
the whole empire, from one end to the other, 
reckon us equally weak and wicked ? in a word, 
are we not become an abomination in the land ? 
such is the language of the minority. How can 
they, with a serious face, desire us to undertake 
this enquiry, in order to satisfy the people ? the 
people, if their former assertions are to be credited, 
will receive no good at our hands. They will 
regard what we say no more than a knot of 
coffee-house politicians. We are too ridiculous, 
as well as odious, to do any thing that will appear 
gracious in their eyes. What is the conclusion 
to be drawn ? Let us satisfy ourselves. Let us 
act according to the dictates of honour and con- 
science, and be at peace with our own minds. It 
is thus that we shall sooner or later regain the 
confidence of our constituents, if we have lost it ; 



and not by humouring, as foolish nurses hunaour 
great lubberly boys, the wayward whims of a 
misled multitude. The characteristic of this 
House should be a firm and manly steadiness, an 
unshaken perseverance in the pursuit of great 
and noble plans of general utility, and not a 
wavering inconstant fluctuation of counsels, re- 
gulated by the shifting of the popular breeze. 
If we are not to judge for ourselves, but to be 
ever at the comniand of the vulgar, and their 
capricious shouts and hisses, I cannot see what 
advantage the nation can reap from a represent- 
ative body, which they might not have reaped 
from a tumultuous assembly of themselves, col- 
lected at random on Salisbury Plain or Running- 
mede. It is very well known, that such an 
irregular and riotous crowd are but very ill quali- 
fied to judge truly of their own interest, or to 
pursue it, even when they form a right judg- 
ment. They are but very unsteady guardians 
of liberty and property. Do you want proofs ? 
consult the English history, and you will find 
them in every page.' 

Mr Burke, in answer to Mr Fox, and in sup- 
port of the motion, spoke as follows : — 

' The subject of our present debate is, in my 
opinion, a matter of a very serious and import- 
ant nature ; and it is not therefore to be dis- 
missed without mature deliberation. The hon- 
ourable gentleman who introduced it, boldly 
arraigns the general conduct of our courts of 
justice ; and the gentleman who seconded him, 
as boldly arraigns the conduct of a particular 
judge. Either charge should be alone sufficient 
to excite our closest attention. What effect 
ought then both in conjunction to produce ? they 
ought to impel us, if not to enquiry, at least to a 
minute and elaborate discussion. For what has 
the mover of the question arraigned? he has 
arraigned the general principles of jurisprudence 
now adopted by our judges, and has, i?i his way, 
proved them net only uficonstitutional, but 
illegal. He has laid before you two heads of 
accusation, two points, in which he conceives the 
judges have not done their duty. These two 
points are a ride of law, and a rule of evidence, 
authorized, as he asserts, neither by precedent 
nor by the spirit of liberty. First he tells you 
that judges act illegally and unconstitutionally, 
in directing juries not to take cognizance of the 
malice or innocence of a culprit's intention in 
cases of libels ; and secondly he tells you, that 
in cases of libels, they act illegally and uncon- 
stitutionally in acquainting the jury that the law 
infers guilt from the pru7id facie evidence ; a 
position by which masters become, even in 
criminal cases, responsible for the conduct of 
their servants. 

' These are the doctrines which he arraigns, 
and which are now in issue before you. He 
asserts that they are not sanctioned by prece- 
dent. But here his reading seems not to have 



PREFACE. 



oaths, were to pronounce their peer ^w///)/ 
or not guilty. When we hear such non- 
been sufficiently extensive. There are prece- 
dents, and those too, I fear, of too much weight 
and authority. You have heard lord chief justice 
Raymond's words quoted, and nothing can be 
more explicit than they are, in favour of these 
doctrines. What ! you will say, can these be 
the doctrines of lord Raymond, and yet be un- 
known to the learned serjeant? Why it is im- 
possible. A case so much in point could never 
escape his industry and learning : and to render 
the thing certain, he gives the assertion a flat 
contradiction. But I say that it is not only pos- 
sible and probable, but certain ; and let me tell 
you, that the way to overturn the credit of grave 
and universally esteemed historians, is not to 
give them a flat contradiction. The most positive 
asseverations of a modern go for nothing, when 
they are unsupported by the contradictor}'- testi- 
mony of some ancient contemporary author. 
Was this heresy then adopted as an article of 
faith, by Raymond ? Yes, Sir, it was ; the fact 
is too clear, too well known, to bear dispute. 
Nor was it an innovation introduced by that 
great judge. No ; he received it as a legacy 
from still greater judges, and among the rest, 
from the very bulwark of the revolution, lord 
Holt. 

' But what though this opinion has been sanc- 
tioned by a series of precedents ; what though it 
has been embraced by men as deep skilled in law 
and casuistry as remarkable for inflexible pa- 
triotism ; have not the greatest lawyers, the 
profoundest casuists, and the staunchest patriots 
erred ? Why then should the judges be thought 
exempted from the common lot of humanity ? 
Why should they be deemed infallible more than 
other mortals ? believe me, the wisdom of the 
whole nation can see farther than the sages of 
Westminster-hall. In a constitutional point like 
this, the collective knowledge and penetration of 
the people at large, are more to be depended on 
than the boasted discernment of all the bar. 
The reason is clear. I'heir eyes are not dazzled 
by the prospect of an opposite interest. The 
crown has no lure sufficiently tempting to maka 
them forget themselves and the general good. 

' Why then should not we, on this occasion, 
listen to their voice, as it is heard sufficiently 
loud and distinct ? Because, forsooth, they have 
no voice 1 because their sentiments are only to 
be gathered from the determinations of the ma- 
jority of this House ! because after a general 
election is closed, they have no legal existence, 
and have therefore no other mouth but that of 
their representatives ! Strange doctrine ! What 
then is become of petitioning? Are they not 
legally entitled to that right ? You cannot deny 
it, without denying the authority of the Bill of 
Rights. How then can you pretend that they ] 
have no legal voice, but that of their represent- j 
atives ? they have both a real and a legal voice, ' 
and they have uttered that voice. Consult the 
History of the reign of George the Thii-d. In 

I 



sense delivered from the bench, and find it 
supported by a laboured train of sophistry, 

that performance, which will be an everlasting 
monument of the folly, incapacity, and pernicious 
politics of our late and present ministers, you 
will find it demonstrated, that the majority of 
Englishmen have petitioned the king, and have 
consequently expressed their own sentiments by 
their own mouth, without the intervention of 
their deputies. By what rule then does the 
majority of this House square its conduct, when 
it acts in direct opposition to the majority of the 
people? by that rule of arithmetic, which, by its 
almighty fiat, overturned the laws of nature, 
decreed 296 to be greater than 1146, gave us 
colonel Luttrell for John Wilkes, a cuckoo in a 
magpy's nest to suck its eggs. 

' I'hat there should be found gentlemen who 
would annihilate the people, and acknowledge 
no other voice but that of this House, is to me 
not at all surprising ! because the conduct of the 
most violent sticklers for this doctrine, has not 
deserved much applause or favour from them. 
But that they should have renounced reason and 
common sense so far, as to maintain that the 
majority of this assembly is the only organ by 
which their sentiments can le expressed, is to 
me truly surprising : for where, in the name of 
wonder, should the House acquire the necessary 
knowledge or intelligence ? is it by turning over 
these musty volumes, or by rummaging these 
gaudy boxes which lie on your table ? No ; 
they contain none of these mysteries. How 
then are they to be explored? Is there any 
virtue or inspiration in these benches or cushions, 
by which they are communicated? or does the 
echo of these walls whisper the secret in your 
ears ? No ; but the echo of every other wall, 
the murmur of every stream, the shouts, ay, and 
the hoots and hisses, of every street in the nation, 
ring it in your ears, and deafen you with their 
din. Deafen you, did I say? alas ! you were 
deaf before, or rather dead, else you would have 
heard ; for their voice is loud enough to waken 
almost the dead. For shame, gentlemen, let us 
hear no more such weak reasonings and sophist- 
ical refinements. Far from producing conviction, 
they cannot even extort a smile, except perad- 
venture at the author, who resembles a hunter 
that would catch an elephant in toils made of 
cobweb. The people have a voice of their own, 
and it must, nay it will, be sooner or later heard ; 
and I, as in duty bound, will always exert every 
nerve, and every power, of which I am master, 
to hasten the completion of so desirable an event. 
My reverence for the judges, against whom the 
popular cry is now so loud, will not deter me ; 
because I know all judges are but men. Not 
only former judges, but juries have erred. Why 
not the present? Yes, Sir. juries have erred, 
and they may err again. When they do, I shall 
be as ready to enquire into their conduct, as I 
am now into that of the judges. Gentlemen may 
talk of their great respect for juries, and their 
readiness to acquiesce ui their determinations ; 



PREFACE. 



which a plain understanding is unable to 
follow, and which an unlearned jury, how- 
ever it may shock their reason, cannot be 
supposed quaUfied to refute, can it be won- 
dered that they should return a verdict, 
perplexed, absurd, or imperfect? — Lord 
Mansfield has not yet explained to the 
world, why he accepted of a verdict, which 
the court afterwards set aside as illegal, 
and which, as it took no notice of the 
innuendoes, did not even correspond with 
his own charge. If he had known his duty 



but I am not disposed to be so complaisant, I 
will make no man, nor any set of men, a compli- 
ment of the constitution. It is too valuable an 
inheritance to be so lightly relinquished. When 
the actions of juries are praiseworthy, let them 
be applauded ; when they are criminal, let them 
be punished. Popularity should not be bought 
at so high a price. For my own part, let the 
malicious and the ungenerous say what they 
will, I am a blind follower of no man, nor a bond 
slave to any party. I have always acted accord- 
ing to the best information of my judgment, and 
the clear dictates of my conscience. On this 
occasion I solemnly protest before God, that I 
entertain no personal enmity against any man, 
nor have I any interested schemes to promote. 
My sole object in supporting the proposed en- 
quiry, is the public welfare and the acquittal of 
the judges, for I am satisfied that an acquittal 
will be the consequence. In acting thus, I think 
myself their best friend ; because no other plan 
win clear their character. Till this step is taken, 
in vain do they pretend to superior sanctity; in 
vain do some gentlemen tread their halls as holy 
ground, or reverence their courts as the temples 
of the divinity. To the people they appear the 
temples of idols, and false oracles, or rather as 
the dwellings of truth and justice converted 
into dens of thieves and robbers. For what 
greater robbers can there be, than those who 
rob men of their laws and liberties? No man 
has a greater veneration than I have for the 
doctors of the law ; and it is for that reason that 
I would thus render their characters pure and 
unsullied as the driven .snow. But will any of 
you pretend that this is at present the case ? are 
not their temples profaned ? has not pollution 
entered them, and penetrated into the holy of 
holies ? are not the priests suspected of being no 
better than those of Bel and the Dragon, or 
rather of being worse than those of Baal ? and 
has not therefore the fire of the people's wrath 
almost consumed them ? The lightning has 
pierced the sanctuary, and rent the vail of their 
temple from the top even to the bottom. No- 
thing is whole, nothing is sound. The ten tables 
of the law are shattered and splintered. The 
ark of the covenant is lost, and passed into the 
hands of the uncircumcised. Both they and ye 
are become an abomination unto the Lord. In 



he should have sent the jury back. — I speak 
advisedly, and am well assured that no 
lawyer of character, in Westminster-hall, 
will contradict me. To show the falsehood 
of lord Mansfield' s doctrine, it is not neces- 
sary to enter into the merits of the paper 
which produced the trial. If every line of 
it were treason, his charge to the jury 
would still be false, absurd, illegal, and un- 
constitutional. If I stated the merits of my 
letter to the King, I should imitate LORD 
Mansfield, and'^ travel out of the 

order to wash away your sins, let Moses and the 
prophets ascend Mount Sinai, and bring us down 
the second table of the law in thunder and light- 
nings ; for in thunder and lightnings the consti- 
tution was first, and must now be established. 
Let the judges mount up to the source of pre- 
cedents and decisions, and trace the law clear 
and unpolluted along the stream of time, and 
the silent lapse of years. Let them march in 
procession to this House, ushered in by a long 
train of precedents and opinions, and lay them 
all in a bundle in the middle of the room. Then, 
and not till then, will they stand justified. 
Then, and not till then, will you stand justified. 
In vain do you trust to the virtue of that furred 
gown, or to the magic of that bauble, as Crom- 
well truly called it. They confer neither real 
power, nor, what is often its parent, a fair cha- 
racter. These desirable possessions are acquired 
by an upright conduct, and the confidence of 
the people.' — Edit. 

^ The following quotation from a speech 
delivered by lord Chatha>n, on the eleventh of 
December, 1770, is taken with exactness. The 
reader will find it curious in itself, and very fit to 
be inserted here. 'My Lords, the verdict, given 
in Woodfall's trial, was guilty of J>rinti?tg- and 
publishing ONLY ; upon which too motions were 
made in court ; — one, in arrest of judgment, by 
the defendant's counsel, grounded upon the am- 
biguity of the verdict ; — the other, by the counsel 
for the crown, for a rule upon the defendant, to 
show cause, why the verdict should not be 
entered up according to the legal import of the 
words. On both motions, a rule was granted, 
and soon after the matter was argued before the 
Court of King's Bench. The noble judge, when 
he delivered the opinion of the court upon the 
verdict, went regularly through the whole of the 
proceedings at Nisi Prius, as well the evidence 
that had been given, as his own charge to the 
jury. I'his proceeding would have been very 
proper, had a motion been made of either side for 
a new trial, because either a verdict given con- 
trary to evidence, or an improper charge by the 
judge at Nisi Prius, is held to be a sufficient 
ground for granting a new trial. But when a 
motion is made in arrest of judgment, or for 
establishing the verdict, by entering it up accord- 
ing to the legal import of the words, it must be 



PREFACE. 



RECORD. W/ien law and reason speak 
plainly, we do not want authority to direct 



on the ground of something appearing on tJieface 
of the record; and the court, in considering 
whether the verdict shall be established or not, 
are so confined to the record, that they cannot 
take notice of any thing that does not appear on 
the face of it ; in the legal phrase, they cannot 
travel out of the record. The noble judge did 
travel out of the record, and I affirm that his dis- 
course was irregidar, extrajudicial, and unpre- 
cedented. His apparent motive, for doing what 
he knew to be wrong, was, that he might have an 
opportunity of telh'ng the public extrajjidicially, 
that the other three judges concurred in the 
doctrine laid down in his charge.' — Author, 

The opinion of the court here referred to, was 
as follows; and we give it as an extraordinary 
dictujn, not readily to be met with in the pre- 
sent day. It was delivered by the lord chief 
justice, Nov. 20, 1770. 

'This matter comes on before the court upon 
two rules which have been obtained ; the one by 
the defendant's counsel, to stay the entering up 
the interlocutory judgment in this cause ; the 
other by the attorney-general, to enter up the 
judgment according to the legal import of the 
verdict. In considering these rules, we are 
naturally led to begin with the last, because the 
last may decide the former ; and in doing this, it 
will be previously necessary to state a report of 
the trial. ' The defendant was tried for the 
printing and publishing, in a paper called the 
Public Advertiser, a libel signed Junius ; and in 
the information the tenor of the libel was set 
forth, with innuendoes, to complete the blanks, 
and with the usual epithets, (i.) The first wit- 
ness, Crowder, proved the buying of the paper, 
which was produced, and twelve others, at the 
defendant's printing-house, of his servant. (2.) 
Harris proved payments at the stamp-office, by 
the defendant, for the Public Advertiser, and that 
the duty for the stamp upon this paper was paid 
by the defendant's servant. (3.J Lee, sir John 
Fielding's clerk, proved several payments to the 
defendant for advertisements in the Public 
Advertiser, and produced his receipt." The proof 
upon the trial was clear, and not controverted by 
the defendant's counsel, who called no witnesses. 
They rested their defence in objecting to some 
of the innuendoes, but principally apphed to the 
jury to convince them that the paper was inno- 
cent, and that some of the epithets in the in- 
formation did not apply to the intention of the 
defendant. No fact, in case the paper be inno- 
cent, can make the publication a subject of guilt ; 
and if the jury find it so, the defendant may have 
advantage of its innocence by arrest of judgment 
in this court ; but that is not any question here. 
Nor is this a case, like some of those, where a 
publication of a paper may be justified from par- 
ticular circumstances. I directed the jury, that 
if they believed the innuendoes, as to persons and 
things, to have been properly filled up in the 
information, and •■.o be the true meaning of the 



our understandings. Yet, for the honour 
of the profession, I am content to oppose 



paper, and if they gave credit to the witnesses, 
they must find the defendant guilty ; for, if they 
believed them, there is no doubt but there was 
sufficient evidence of the defendant's printing and 
publLshing. If the jury were obliged to deter- 
mine, whether the paper was in law a libel or no, 
or to judge whether It was criminal, or to what 
degree, or if they were to require proofs of a 
criminal Intention, then this direction was wrong. 
I told them, as I have alwaj'S done before, that 
whether a libel or not, was a mere question of 
law, arising out of the record ; and that all the 
epithets inserted in the information, were also 
formal Inferences of law. A general verdict of 
the jury, finds only what the law implies from the 
fact. There is no necessary proof of malice to 
be made ; for that is scarce possible to be pro- 
duced. The law implies, from the fact of publi- 
cation, a criminal Intent. The jury stayed out a 
long while — many hours — and at last delivered in 
their verdict at my house (the objection to its 
being out of the city being cured by consent). 
To the usual question of the officer, the foreman 
answered in these words, Guilty of printing and 
publishing only. The officer has entered up the 
words literally, without so much as adding the 
usual words of reference to connect the sense. 
An affidavit of one of the jury has been attempt- 
ed to be laid before the court by the defend- 
ant's counsel ; but we are all of opinion that it 
cannot be received. — Such affidavit can only be 
admitted In motion for a new trial, where there 
is a doubt upon the words in which the verdict 
was delivered, or upon the judge's notes of the 
evidence ; but an affidavit of a juryman cannot 
be admitted to explain or assert, what he thought, 
or intended, at the time of giving in the verdict. 
The motion of the attorney-general divides it- 
self into two parts ; (i.) the first, to fill up the 
finding of the jury, with the usual words of 
reference, so as to connect the verdict with the 
information. The omission of these words, we 
are of opinion, is a technical mistake of the clerk, 
and may be now supplied. (2.) The second head 
of argument, is to omit the word only in the 
entry of the verdict. This we are all of opinion 
cannot be done ; the word only must stand in the 
verdict. No reason can be urged for omitting 
the word only, but what goes to prove that it 
adds nothing to the sense of the verdict. If this 
word was omitted, the verdict would then be, 
guilty of printing and publishing, which is a 
general verdict of guilty ; for there is no other 
charge in the information, but printing and pub- 
lishing, and that alone the jury had to enquire. 
In the case of the King and Williams, for the 
North Briton, the jury found the defendant 
guilty of printing and publishing. The officer 
entered up the verdict guilty generally : the 
defendant received the sentence of this court, and 
no objection was taken by his counsel. Where 
there are more charges in an information than 
one, the finding the defendant guilty of printing 



PREFACE. 



123 



one lawyer to another, especially when it 
happens that the king's attorney-general 
has virtually disclaimed the doctrine by 
which the chief justice meant to insure 
success to the prosecution. The opinion 
of the plaintiff's counsel (however it may 
be otherwise insignificant) is weighty in the 
scale of the defendant. — My Lord Chief 
Justice De Grey, who filed the information 
tx officio, is directly with me. If he had 
concurred in lord Mansfield' s doctrine, the 
trial must have been a very short one. The 
facts were either admitted by Wood/all's 
counsel, or easily proved to the satisfaction 
of the jury. But Air De Grey, far from 
thinking he should acquit himself of his 
duty by barely proving the facts, entered 
largely, and I confess not without ability, 
into the demerits of the paper, which he 
called a seditious libel. He dwelt but 
lightly upon those points, which (according 
to lord Mansfield) v/ere the only matter of 
consideration to the jury. The criminal 
intent, the libellous matter, the pernicious 
tendency of the paper itself, were the topics 
on which he principally insisted, and of 
which, for more than an hour, he tortured 
his faculties to convince the jury. If he 
agreed in opinion with lord Mansfield, his 
discourse was impertinent, ridiculous, and 
unseasonable. But, understanding the law 
as I do, what he said was at least consist- 
ent and to the purpose. 



and publishing only, would be an acquittal of the 
other charges ; but here the jury had nothing 
else to find. They found him guilty of printing 
and publishing only, which was all of which they 
were to find him guilty, being the only crime 
with which he was charged. We are all of 
opinion, that my direction to the jury is right, 
and according to law ; the positions contained in 
it never were doubted ; it never has been, nor is 
it now, complained of in this court. There clearly 
can be no judgment of acquittal, because the fact 
found by the jury is the only question they had 
to try. The single doubt that remains, is as to 
the meaning of the woi-d only. It would be im- 
proper now to make a question of the law, as I 
lay it down. In all the reports which I have 
made upon trials for libels, where my direction 
has been uniformly the same, the bar may re- 
member the dead, and the living who are now 
absent, all to have concurred in agreeing that it 
was law thus to direct the jury in matter of libel. 
Taking then the law to be thus,,the only question 



If any honest man should still be inclined 
to leave the construction of hbels to the 
court, I would intreat him to consider what 
a dreadful complication of hardships he 
imposes upon his fellow-subject. — In the 
first place, the prosecution commences by 
infor77iaiio7i of an officer of the crown, not 
by the regular constitutional mode of in- 
dictment before a grand jury. — As the fact 
is usually admitted, or in general can easily 
be proved, the office of the petty jury is 
nugatory. — The court then judges of the 
nature and extent of the offence, and deter- 
mines ad arbitriuni, the guajitum of the 
punishment, from a small fine to a heavy 
one, to repeated whipping, to pillory, and 
unhmited imprisonment. Cutting off ears 
and noses might still be inflicted by a reso- 
lute judge ; but I will be candid enough to 
suppose that penalties, so apparently shock- 
ing to humanity, would not be hazarded in 
these times. — In all other criminal prosecu- 
tions, the jury decides upon the fact and 
the crime in one word, and the court pro- 
nounces a certain sentence, which is the 
sentence of the law, not of the judge. If 
lord Mansfield's doctrine be received, the 
jury must either find a verdict of acquittal, 
contrary to evidence (which, I can con- 
ceive, might be done by very conscientious 
men, rather than trust a fellow-creature to 



is whether any meaning, which will affect the 
verdict, can be put upon the word only, as it 
stands upon this record. If the jury meant to 
say, they did not find the paper a libel, or the 
intent of the defendant to be criminal in publish- 
ing it, or that they did not find the truth and 
application of the epithets in the information, all 
this would have vitiated the verdict ; for it would 
have been entering into matters not before them. 
But if they meant to say, that they did not find 
the meaning put upon the innuendoes, we should 
enter up judgment of acquittal : but this would 
be contradictory to the former part of their 
verdict. It is impossible to say with certainty, 
what they meant. Possibly they meant differ- 
ently, and some of them might intend not to find 
the whole sense put upon the innuendoes. This 
would be the most favourable supposition for the 
defendant, to which the judges will always lean. 
But if a doubt arises on the import of the verdict, 
the court should grant a ve7iire facias de 7iovo, 
which it is in their power to do, when a verdict 
of acquittal has not been found for the defend- 
ant.' — Edit. 



124 



PREFACE. 



lord Mansfield's mercy), or they must leave 
to the court two ofifices, never but in this 
instance united, of finding guilty, and 
awarding punishment. 

But, says this honest lord chief justice, 
' If the paper be not criminal, the defend- 
ant ' (though found guilty by his peers) ' is 
in no danger, for he may move the court in 
arrest of judgment." — True, my good Lord, 
but who is to determine upon the motion ? — 
Is not the court still to decide, vi'hether 
judgment shall be entered up or not ; and 
is not the defendant this way as effectually 
deprived of judgment by his peers, as if he 
were tried in a court of civil law, or in the 
chambers of the inquisition ? It is you, my 
Lord, who then try the crime, not the jury. 
As to the probable effect of a motion in 
arrest of judgment, I shall only observe, 
that no reasonable man would be so eager 
to possess himself of the invidious power of 
inflicting punishment, if he were not pre- 
determined to make use of it. 

Again : — We are told that judge and jury 
have a distinct office ; — that the jury is to 
find the fact, and the judge to deliver the 
law. De jure respondent judices, de facto 
jurati. The dictum is true, though not in 
the sense given to it by lord Mansfield. 
The jury are undoubtedly to determine the 
fact, that is, whether the defendant did or 
did not commit the crime charged against 
him. The judge pronounces the sentence 
annexed by law to that fact so found ; and 
if, in the course of the trial, any question of 
law arises, both the counsel and the jury 
must, of necessity, appeal to the judge, and 
leave it to his decision. An exception, or 
plea iji bar, may be allowed by the court ; 
but, v/hen issue is joined, and the jury have 
received their charge, it is not possible, in 
the nature of thiags, for them to separate 
the law from the fact, unless they think 
proper to return a special verdict. 

It has also been alledged that, although 
a common jury are sufficient to determine a 
plain matter of fact, they are not qualified 
to comprehend the meaning, or to judge of 
the tendency, of a seditious libel. In answer 
to this objection (which, if well founded, 



would prove nothing as to the strict right 
of returning a general verdict), I might 
safely deny the truth of the assertion. 
Englishmen of that rank from which juries 
are usually taken, are not so illiterate as 
(to serve a particular purpose) they are now 
represented. Or, admitting the fact, let a 
special jury "be summoned in all cases of diffi- 
culty and importance, and the objection is 
removed. But the truth is, that if a paper, 
supposed to be a libel upon government, 
be so obscurely worded, that twelve common 
men cannot possibly see the seditious mean- 
ing and tendency of it, it is in effect no 
libel. It cannot inflame the minds of the 
people, nor alienate their affections from 
government ; for they no more understand 
what it means, than if it were published in 
a language unknown to them. 

Upon the whole matter, it appears to my 
understanding clear beyond a doubt, that 
if, in any future prosecution for a seditious 
libel, the jury should bring in a verdict of 
acquittal not warranted by the evidence, it 
will be owing to the false and absurd doc- 
trines laid down by lord Mansfield. Dis- 
gusted at the odious artifices made use of 
by the judge to mislead and perplex them, 
guarded against his sophistry, and con- 
vinced of the falsehood of his assertions, 
they may perhaps determine to thwart his 
detestable purpose, and defeat him at any 
rate. To him, at least, they will do sub- 
sta7itial justice.— V^hQxediS, if the whole 
charge, laid in the information, be fairly 
and honestly submitted to the jury, there is 
no reason whatsoever to presume that 
twelve men, upon their oaths, will not de- 
cide impartially between the king and the 
defendant. The numerous instances, in our 
state trials, of verdicts recovered for the 
king, sufficiently refute the false and scan- 
dalous imputations thrown by the abettors 
of lord Mansfield upon the integrity of 
juries. — But even admitting the supposition 
that, in times of universal discontent, 
arising from the notorious maladministra- 
tion of public affairs, a seditious writer 
should escape punishment, it makes nothing 
against my general argument. If juries are 



PREFACE. 



125 



fallible, to what other tribunal shall we 
appeal? — If juries cannot safely be trusted, 
shall we unite the offices of judge and jury, 
so wisely divided by the constitution, and 
trust implicitly to lord Mansfield?— Avq 
the judges of the Court of King's Bench 
more likely to be unbiassed and impartial, 
than twelve yeomen, burgesses, or gentle- 
men taken indiiferently from the county at 
large? — Or, in short, shall there be no 
decision, until we have instituted a tribunal, 
from which no possible abuse or incon- 
venience whatsoever can arise? — If I am 
not grossly mistaken, these questions carry 
a decisive answer along with them.i 

Having cleared the freedom of the press 
from a restraint, equally unnecessary and 
illegal, I return to the use which has been 
made of it in the present pubhcation. 

National reflections, I confess, are not to 
be justified in theory, nor upon any general 
principles. To know how well they are 
deserved, and how justly they have been 
applied, we must have the evidence of facts 
before us. We must be conversant with the 
Scots in private life, and observe their prin- 
ciples of acting to vs, and to each other ; 
— the characteristic prudence, the selfish 
nationality, the indefatigable smile, the 
persevering assiduity, the everlasting pro- 
fession of a discreet and moderate resent- 
ment. — If the instance were not too import- 
ant for an experiment, it might not be 
amiss to confide a Httle in their integrity. — 
Without any abstract reasoning upon 
causes and effects, we shall soon be con- 
vinced by experience, that the Scots, trans- 
planted from their own country, are always 
a distinct and separate body from the 
people who receive them. In other settle- 
ments, they only love themselves ; — in Eng- 
land, they cordially love themselves, and as 

^ The questions are so decisive, and the general 
train of reasoning here advanced so clear and 
convincing, that the point has been ever since 
settled upon the authority of common sense, in 
the feelings and understanding of every man, 
whether professional or unprofessional. And all 
that remained to be done, was an interference of 
the legislature to prevent a revival of the ques- 
tion by any future, judge, upon any future case 
whatsoever ; a business patriotically undertaken 



cordially hate their neighbours. For the 
remainder of their good quahties, i must 
appeal to the reader's observation, unless 
he will accept of 7ny lord Barrington's 
authority. In a letter to the late lord Mel- 
combe, published by Mr Lee, he expresses 
himself with a truth and accuracy not very 
common in his lordship's lucubrations.— 
' And Cockbum, hke fnost of his country- 
men, is as abject to those above him, as he 
is insolent to those below him." 2 — I am far 
from meaning to impeach the articles of the 
Union. If the true spirit of those articles 
were religiously adhered to, we should 
not see such a multitude of Scotch com- 
moners in the Lower House as represent- 
atives of English boroughs, while not a 
single Scotch borough is ever represented 
by an Englishman. We should not see 
English peerages given to Scotch ladies, or 
to the elder sons of Scotch peers, and the 
number of sixteen doubled and trebled by 
a scandalous evasion of the Act of Union. — 
If it should ever be thought advisable to 
dissolve an act, the violation or observance 
of which is invariably directed by the ad- 
vantage and interest of the Scots, I shall 
say very sincerely with Sir Edward Coke, 
' When poor England stood alone, and had 
not the access of another kingdom, and yet 
had more and as potent enemies as it now 
hath, yet the king of England prevailed.' 3 
Some opinion may now be expected 
from me, upon a point of equal delicacy 
to the writer, and hazard to the printer. 
When the character of the chief magis- 
trate is in question, more must be under- 
stood than may safely be expressed. If 
it be really a part of our constitution, and 
not a mere dictum of the law, thai the 
King cati do no zurong, it is not the only 
instance, in the wisest of human institutions, 
where theory is at variance with practice. — 



by a statesman, whose name will ever be con- 
nected with genuine patriotism, the late JMr Fox, 
who in 1791 introduced a bill into parliament for 
this purpose, and in 1792 succeeded in carrying 
it through both Houses. See farther on this 
subject, note to Letter XLI., p. 247. — Edit. 

^ See the same passage quoted in Miscel- 
laneous Letter, No. CXL — Edit. 

3 Parliamentary History, 7. V. p. 400. 



126 



PREFACE. 



That the sovereign of this country is not 
amenable to any form of trial, known to the 
laws, is unquestionable. But exemption 
from punishment is a singular privilege 
annexed to the royal character, and no way 
excludes the possibility of deserving it. 
How long, and to what extent, a king of 
England may be protected by the forms, 
when he violates the spirit of the constitu- 
tion, deserves to be considered. A mistake 
in this matter proved fatal to Charles and 
his son. — For my own part, far from think- 
ing that the king can do no wrong, far 
from suffering myself to be deterred or im- 
posed upon by the language of forms, in 
opposition to the substantial evidence of 
truth, if it were my misfortune to live under 
the inauspicious reign of a prince, whose 
whole life was employed in one base, con- 
temptible struggle with the free spirit of 
his people, or in the detestable endeavour 
to corrupt their moral principles, I would 
not scruple to declare to him, — ' Sir, You 
alone are the author of the greatest wrong 
to Your subjects and to Yourself. Instead 
of reigning in the hearts of Your people, 
instead of commanding their lives and for- 
tunes through the medium of their affec- 
tions, has not the strength of the crown, 
whether influence or prerogative, been uni- 
formly exerted, for eleven years together, 
to support a narrow, pitiful system of 
government, which defeats itself, and an- 
swers no one purpose of real power, profit, 
or personal satisfaction to You ? — With the 
greatest unappropriated revenue of any 
prince in Europe, have we not seen You 
reduced to such vile and sordid distresses, 
as would have conducted any other man to 
a prison ? — With a great military, and the 
greatest naval power in the known world, 
have not foreign nations repeatedly insulted 
You with impunity? — Is it not notorious 
that the vast revenues, extorted from the 
labour and industry of Your subjects, and 
given You to do honour to Yourself and to 
the nation, are dissipated in corrupting their 
representatives ?— Are You a Prince of the 
House of Hanover, and do You exclude all 
the leading Whig families from Your 



councils? — Do You profess to govern ac- 
cording to law, and is it consistent with 
that profession, to impart Your confidence 
and affection to those men only, who, 
though now perhaps detached from the 
desperate cause of the Pretender, are 
marked in this country by an hereditary 
attachment to high and arbitrary principles 
of government? — Are You so infatuated as 
to take the sense of Your people from the 
representation of ministers, or from the 
shouts of a mob, notoriously hired to sur- 
round Your coach, or stationed at a 
theatre ? — And if You are, in reality, that 
public Man, that King, that Magistrate, 
which these questions suppose You to be, 
is it any answer to Your people, to say that, 
among Your domestics You are good-hu- 
moured ; — that to orie lady You are faithful ; 
— that to Your children You are indulgent ? 
— Sir, the man who addresses You in these 
terms is Your best friend. He would will- 
ingly hazard his life in defence of Your 
title to the crown ; and, if power be Your 
object, would still show You, how possible 
it is for a King of England, by the noblest 
means, to be the most absolute prince in 
Europe, You have no enemies. Sir, but 
those who persuade You to aim at power 
without right, and who think it flattery to 
tell You, that the character of King dissolves 
the natural relation between guilt and pun- 
ishment.' 

I cannot conceive that there is a heart so 
callous, or an understanding so depraved, 
as to attend to a discourse of this nature, 
and not to feel the force of it. But where 
is the man, among those who have access 
to the closet, resolute and honest enough 
to deliver it. The liberty of the press is 
our only resource. It will command an 
audience when every honest man in the 
kingdom is excluded. This glorious privi- 
lege may be a security to the king, as well 
as a resource to his people. Had there 
been no star-chamber, there would have 
been no rebellion against Charles the First. 
The constant censure and admonition of 
the press would have corrected his conduct, 
prevented a civil war, and saved him from 



PREFACE. 



127 



an ignominious death.— I am no friend to 
the doctrine of precedents exclusive of right, 
though lawyers often tell us, that whatever 
has been once done, may lawfully be 'done 
again. 

I shall conclude this preface with a quot- 
ation, applicable to the subject, from a 
foreign writer,^ whose essay on the English 
constitution I beg leave to recommend to 
the pubhc, as a performance deep, solid, 
and ingenious. 

' In short, whoever considers what it is, 
that constitutes the moving principle of 
what we call great affairs, and the invinci- 
ble sensibihty of man to the opinion of his 
fellow-creatures, will not hesitate to affirm 
that, if it were possible for the hberty of 



^ Monsieur de Lolme, 



the press to exist in a despotic government, 
and (what is not less difficult) for it to 
exist without changing the constitution, this 
liberty of the press would alone form a 
counterpoise to the power of the prince. 
If, for example, in an empire of the East, a 
sanctuary could be found, which, rendered 
respectable by the ancient religion of the 
people, might insure safety to those who 
should bring thither their observations of 
any kind ; and that, from thence, printed 
papers should issue, which, under a certain 
seal, might be equally respected ; and 
which, in their daily appearance, should 
examine and freely discuss the conduct of 
the cadis, the bashaws, the vizir, the divan, 
and the sultan himself, that would introduce 
immediately some degree of liberty.' 



LETTERS 



JUNIUS 



LETTER I. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 21 yanuaiy, 1769. 

The submission of a free people 
to the executive authority of government 
is no more than a compliance with laws, 
which they themselves have enacted. While 
the national honour is firmly maintained 
abroad, and while justice is impartially ad- 
ministered at home, the obedience of the 
subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and I 
might almost say, unhmited. A generous 
nation is grateful even for the preservation 
of its rights, and willingly extends the re- 
spect due to the ofifice of a good prince into 
an affection for his person. Loyalty, in the 
heart and understanding of an Englishman, 
is a rational attachment to the guardian of 
the laws. Prejudices and passion have 
sometimes carried it to a criminal length ; 
and, whatever foreigners may imagine, we 
know that Englishmen have erred as much 
in a mistaken zeal for particular persons 
and families, as they ever did in defence of 
what they thought most dear and interest- 
ing to themselves. 



^ The arrangement of the ministry, at the 
period in question, was as follows: — duke of 
Grafton, first lord of the treasury ; lord North, 
chancellor of the exchequer ; lord Camden, lord 
chancellor ; lord viscount Townshend, lord-lieu- 
tenant of Ireland ; earl Rochford, minister for 
the foreign department ; viscount Weymouth 
(afterwards marquis of Bath), for the home de- 
partment ; earl of Hillsborough (since marquis 



It naturally fills us with resentment, to 
see such a temper insulted, or abused. In 
reading* the history of a free people, whose 
rights have been invaded, we are interested 
in their cause. Our own feelings tell us 
how long they ought to have submitted, 
and at what moment it would have been 
treachery to themselves not to have resisted. 
How much warmer will be our resentment, 
if experience should bring the fatal example 
home to ourselves ! 

The situation of this country is alarming 
enough to rouse the attention of every man, 
who pretends to a concern for the public 
welfare. Appearances justify suspicion ; 
and, when the safety of a nation is at stake, 
suspicion is a just ground of enquiry. Let 
us enter into it with candour and decency. 
Respect is due to the station of ministers ; 
and, if a resolution must at last be taken, 
there is none so likely to be supported with 
firmness, as that which has been adopted 
with moderation. 

The ruin or prosperity of a state depends 
so much upon the administration of its 
government, that, to be acquainted with 
the merit of a ministry, we need only ob- 
serve the condition of the people. ^ If we 



of Downshire), American minister; earl Govver, 
lord president of the council ; earl Bristol, lord 
privy seal ; sir Edvv. Hawke, first lord of the 
admiralty ; viscount Barrington, secretary at 
war ; marquis of Granby, master-gen. of the 
ordnance ; lord Howe, treasurer of the navy ; 
Mr De Grey and Mr Dunning (subsequently 
lords Walsingham and Ashburtonj, attorney and 
solicitor-general. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



129 



see them obedient to the laws, prosperous 
in their industry, united at home, and re- 
spected abroad, we may reasonably presume 
that their affairs are conducted by men of 
experience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the 
contrary, we see an universal spirit of dis- 
trust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of 
trade, dissensions in all parts of the empire, 
and a total loss of respect in the eyes of 
foreign powers, we may pronounce, without 
hesitation, that the government of that 
country is weak, distracted, and corrupt. 
The multitude, in all countries, are patient 
to a certain point. Ill-usage may rouse their 
indignation, and hurry them into excesses, 
but the original fault is in government. 
Perhaps there never was an instance of a 
change, in the circumstances and temper of 
a whole nation, so sudden and extraor- 
dinary as that which the misconduct of 
ministers has, within these very few years, 
produced in Great Britain. When our 
gracious Sovereign ascended the throne, 
we were a flourishing and a contented 
people. If the personal virtues of a king 
could have insured the happiness of his 
subjects, the scene could not have altered 
so entirely as it has done. The idea of 
uniting all parties, of trying all characters, 
and of distributing the offices of state by 
rotation, was gracious and benevolent to an 
extreme, though it has not yet produced 
the many salutary effects which were in- 
tended by it. To say nothing of the wisdom 
of such a plan, it undoubtedly arose from 
an unbounded goodness of heart, in which 
folly had no share. It was not a capricious 
partiahty to new faces :— it was not a 
natural turn for low intrigue ; nor was it 
the treacherous amusement of double and 
triple negotiations. No, Sir, it arose from 
a continued anxiety, in the purest of all 
possible hearts, for the general welfare. 
Unfortunately for us, the event has not 
been answerable to the design. After a 

^ The duke of Grafton took the office of secre- 
tary of state, with an engagement to support the 
marquis of Rockingham's administration. He 
resigned however in a httle time, under pre- 
tence that he could not act without lord Chat- 
ham, nor bear to see Mr Wilkes abandoned ; but 



rapid succession of changes, we are reduced 
to that state, which hardly any change can 
mend. Yet there is no extremity of dis- 
tress, which of itself ought to reduce a great 
nation to despair. It is not the disorder, 
but the physician ; — it is not a casual con- 
currence of calamitous circumstances, it is 
the pernicious hand of government, which 
alone can make a whole people desperate. 

Without much poHtical sagacity, or any 
extraordinary depth of observation, we need 
only mark how the principal departments 
of the state are bestowed, and look no 
farther for the true cause of every mischief 
that befalls us. 

The finances of a nation, sinking under 
its debts and expenses, are committed to a 
young nobleman already ruined by play.^ 
Introduced to act under the auspices of 
lord Chatham, and left at the head of 
affairs by that nobleman's retreat, he be- 
came minister by accident ; but deserting 
the principles and professions which gave 
him a moment's popularity, we see him, 
from every honourable engagement to the 
public, an apostate by design. As for busi- 
ness, the world yet knows nothing of his 
talents or resolution; unless a wayward, 
wavering inconsistency be a mark of genius, 
and caprice a demonstration of spirit. It 
may be said perhaps, that it is his Grace's 
province, as surely it is his passion, rather 
to distribute than to save the pubhc money, 
and that while lord North is chancellor of 
the Exchequer, the first lord of the Trea- 
sury may be as thoughtless and as extrava- 
gant as he pleases. I hope, however, he 
will not rely too much on the fertility of 
lord North's genius for finance. His Lord- 
ship is yet to give us the first proof of his 
abilities : It may be candid to suppose that 
he has hitherto voluntarily concealed his 
talents ; intending perhaps to astonish the 
world, when we least expect it, with a 
knowledge of trade, a choice of expedients, 
and a depth of resources equal to the ne- 



that under lord Chatham he would act in atiy 
office. This was the signal of lord Rocking- 
ham's dismission. When lord Chatham came in, 
the duke got possession of the treasury. Reader, 
mark the consequence ! 
9 



I30 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



cessities, and far beyond the hopes, of his 
country. He must now exert the whole 
power of his capacity, if he would wish us 
to forget, that, since he has been in office, 
no plan has been formed, no system ad- 
hered to, nor any one important measure 
adopted for the reUef of public credit. If 
his plan for the service of the current year 
be not irrevocably fixed on, let me warn 
him to think seriously of consequences be- 
fore he ventures to increase the public debt.^ 
Outraged and oppressed as we are, this 
nation will not bear, after a six years' peace, 
to see new millions borrowed, without an 
j eventual diminution of debt, or reduction of 
interest. The attempt might rouse a spirit 
of resentment, which might reach beyond 
the sacrifice of a minister. As to the debt 
upon the civil list, the people of England 
expect that it will not be paid without a 
strict enquiry how it was incurred. If it 
must be paid by parliament, let me advise 
the chancellor of the Exchequer to think 
of some better expedient than a lottery. To 
support an expensive war, or in circum- 
stances of absolute necessity, a lottery may 
perhaps be allowable ; but, besides that it 
is at all times the very worst way of raising 
money upon the people, I think it ill be- 
comes the royal dignity to have the debts 
of a king provided for, Hke the repairs of a 
country bridge, or a decayed hospital. The 
management of the king's affairs in the 
House of Commons cannot be more dis- 
graced than it has been. A leading minister 
repeatedly called down for absolute ignor- 
ance ; — ridiculous motions ridiculously 
withdrawn ; — deliberate plans disconcert- 
ed, 2 and a week's preparation of graceful 
oratory lost in a moment, give us some, 
though not an adequate, idea of lord North's 
parliamentary abilities and influence. Yet 
before he had the misfortune to be chan- 



^ The public debt at the conclusion of the 
peace in 1763, amounted to ;^i48,377,6i8.— Edit. 

^ This happened frequently to poor lord North. 

3 Yet Junius has been called the partisan of< 
lord Chatham ! 

■♦ Upon the death of queen Anne a third secre- 
taryship, antecedently unknown to the consti- 
tution, was created, professing to be for the 
superintendence of Scotland, which terminated 



cellor of the Exchequer, he was neither an 
object of derision to his enemies, nor of 
melancholy pity to his friends. 

A series of inconsistent measures had 
alienated the colonies from their duty as 
subjects, and from their natural affection 
to their common country. When Mr 
Grenville was placed at the head of the 
Treasury, he felt the impossibility of Great 
Britain's supporting such an establishment 
as her former successes had made indis- 
pensable, and at the same time of giving 
any sensible relief to foreign trade, and to 
the weight of the public debt. He thought 
it equitable that those parts of the empire, 
which had benefited most by the expenses 
of the war, should contribute something to 
the expenses of the peace, and he had no 
doubt of the constitutional right vested in 
parliament to raise that contribution. But, 
unfortunately for this country, Mr Gren- 
ville was at any rate to be distressed, be- 
cause he was minister, and Mr Pitt^ and 
lord Camden were to be the patrons of 
America, because they were in opposition. 
Their declarations gave spirit and argu- 
ment to the colonies, and while perhaps 
they meant no more than the ruin of a 
minister, they in effect divided one half of 
the empire from the other. 

Under one administration the Stamp Act 
is made ; under the second it is repealed ; 
under the third, in spite of all experience, 
a new mode of taxing the colonies is' in- 
vented, and a question revived, which 
ought to have been buried in oblivion. In 
these circumstances a new office is estab- 
lished for the business of the plantations, 
and the earl of Hillsborough called forth, 
at a most critical season, to govern Ame- 
rica.'* The choice at least announced to us 
a man of superior capacity and knowledge. 
Whether he be so or not, let his despatches, 
as far as they have appeared, let his mea- 



upon the cessation of the rebellion. In 1768, for 
the purpose of finding a post for the earl of 
Hillsborough, the office of third secretary was 
revived ; and Scotland having no peculiar de- 
mand for his talents, he was denominated secre- 
tary for America. For the rest see our author's 
preceding letters, suhscrihed A ;(iu:us and Lucita, 
in the Miscellaneous Collection. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



131 



sures as far as they have operated, de- 
termine for him. In the former we have 
seen strong assertions without proof, de- 
clamation without argument, and violent 
censures without dignity or moderation ; 
but neither correctness in the composition, 
nor judgment in the design. As for his 
measures, let it be remembered, that he 
was called upon to concihate and unite ; 
and that, when he entered into office, the 
most refractory of the colonies were still 
disposed to proceed by the constitutional 
methods of petition and remonstrance. 
Since that period they have been driven 
into excesses little short of rebellion. Pe- 
titions have been hindered from reaching 
the throne ; and the continuance of one of 
the principal assemblies rested upon an 
arbitrary condition, 1 which, considering the 
temper they were in, it was impossible they 
should comply with, and which would have 
availed nothing as to the general question, 
if it had been comphed with. So violent, 
and I believe I may call it so unconstitu- 
tional, an exertion of the prerogative, to 
say nothing of the weak, injudicious terms 
in which it was conveyed, gives us as hum- 
ble an opinion of his Lordship's capacity, 
as it does of his temper and moderation. 
While we are at peace with other nations, 
our military force may perhaps be spared 
to support the earl of Hillsborough's mea- 
sures in America. Whenever that force 
shall be necessarily withdrawn or diminish- 
ed, the dismission of such a mmister will 
neither console us for his imprudence, nor 
remove the settled resentment of a people, 
who, complaining of an act of the iegisla-- 
ture, are outraged by an unwarrantable 
stretch of prerogative, and, supporting 
their claims by argument, are insulted with 
declamation. 

Drawing lots would be a prudent and 
reasonable method of appointing the officers 
of state, compared to a late disposition of 
the secretary's office. Lord Rochford was 

* That they should retract one of their reso- 
lutions, and erase the entry of it. 

^ It was pretended that the earl of Rochford, 
while ambassador in France, had quarrelled with 



acquainted with the affairs and temper of 
the southern courts : lord Weymouth was 
equally qualified for either department. 2 
By what unaccountable caprice has it hap- 
pened, that the latter, who pretends to no 
experience whatsoever, is removed to the 
most important of the two departments, 
and the former by preference placed in an 
office, where his experience can be of no 
use to him ? lord Weymouth had distin- 
guished himself in his first employment by a 
spirited, if not judicious conduct. He had 
animated the civil magistrate beyond the 
tone of civil authority, and had directed 
the operations of the army to more than 
military execution. Recovered from the 
errors of his youth, from the distraction of 
play, and the bewitching smiles of Bur- 
gundy, behold him exerting the whole 
strength of his clear, unclouded faculties, 
in the service of the crown. It was not the 
heat of midnight excesses, nor ignorance 
of the laws, nor the furious spirit of the 
house of Bedford : No, Sir, when this re- 
spectable minister interposed his authority 
between the magistrate and the people, 
and signed the mandate, on which, for 
aught he knew, the lives of thousands de- 
pended, he did it from the deliberate 
motion of his heart, supported by the best 
of his judgment. 

It has lately been a fashion to pay a 
compliment to the bravery and generosity 
of the commander-in-chief, 3 at the expense 
of his understanding. They who love him 
least make no question of his courage, 
while his friends dwell chiefly on the facility 
of his disposition. Admitting him to be as 
brave as a total absence of all feeling and 
reflection can make him, let us see what 
sort of merit he derives from the remainder 
of his character. If it be generosity to 
accumulate in his own person and family a 
number of lucrative employments ; to pro- 
vide, at the public expense, for every crea- 
ture that bears the name of Manners ; and, 



the duke of Choiseuil, and that therefore he was 
appointed to the northern department, out of 
compUment to the French minister. 
^ The late lord Granby. 



132 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



neglecting the merit and services of the 
rest of the army, to heap promotions upon 
his favourites and dependants, the present 
commander-in-chief is the most generous 
man alive. Nature has been sparing of 
her gifts to this noble lord ; but where birth 
and fortune are united, we expect the noble 
pride and independence of a man of spirit, 
not the servile, humiliating compliances of 
a courtier. ' As to the goodness of his heart, 
if a proof of it be taken from the facility of 
never refusing, what conclusion shall we 
draw from the independency of never per- 
forming ? And if the discipline of the army 
be in any degree preserved, what thanks 
are due to a man, whose cares, notoriously 
confined to filling up vacancies, have de- 
graded the office of commander-in-chief 
into a broker of commissions ! 

With respect to the navy, I shall only say, 
that this country is so highly indebted to sir 
Edward Hawke, that no expense should be 
spared to secure to him an honourable and 
affluent retreat. 

The pure and impartial administration of 
justice is perhaps the firmest bond to secure 
a cheerful submission of the people, and to 
engage their affections to government. It 
is not sufficient that questions of private 
right and wrong are justly decided, nor that 
judges are superior to the vileness of pe- 
cuniary corruption. Jefferies himself, when 
the court had no interest, was an upright 
judge. A court of justice may be subject to 
another sort of bias, more important and per- 
nicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of 
individuals, and affects the whole community . 
A judge under the influence of government, 
may be honest enough in the decision of 
private causes, yet a traitor to the public. 
When a victim is marked out by the 
ministry, this judge will offer himself to 
perform the sacrifice. He will not scruple 
to prostitute his dignity, and betray the 
sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary 
point is to be carried for government, or the 
resentments of a court are to be gratified. 

These principles and proceedings, odious 
and contemptible as they are, in effect are 
no less injudicious. A wise and generous 



people are roused by every appearance 
of oppressive, unconstitutional measures, 
whether those measures are supported 
openly by the power of government, or 
masked under the forms of a court of just- 
ice. Prudence and self-preservation will 
oblige the most moderate dispositions to 
make common cause, even with a man 
whose conduct they censure, if they see him 
persecuted in a way which the real spirit of 
the laws will not justify.! xhe facts, on 
which these remarks are founded, are too 
notorious to require an application. 

This, Sir, is the detail. In one view 
behold a nation overwhelmed with debt ; 
her revenues wasted ; her trade declining ; 
the affections of her colonies alienated ; the 
duty of the magistrate transferred to the 
soldiery ; a gallant army, which never 
fought unwillingly but against their fellow- 
subjects, mouldering away for want of the 
direction of a man of common abilities and 
spirit ; and, in the last instance, the ad- 
ministration of justice become odious and 
suspected to the whole body of the people. 
This deplorable scene admits but of one 
addition — that we are governed by counsels, 
from which a reasonable man can expect 
no remedy but poison, no relief but death. 

If, by the immediate interposition of 
Providence, it were possible for us to 
escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, 
posterity will not believe the history of the 
present times. They will either conclude 
that our distresses were imaginary, or that 
we had the good fortune to be governed by 
men of acknowledged integrity and wis- 
dom : they will not believe it possible that 
their ancestors could have survived, or 
recovered from so desperate a condition, 
while a duke of Grafton was prime minister, 
a lord North chancellor of the E.xchequer, 
a Weymouth and a Hillsborough secre- 
taries of state, a Granby commander-in- 
chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge 
of the kingdom. 

JUNIUS. 



Mr Wilkes.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



133 



LETTER n. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 26 January, 1769. 

The kingdom swarms with such 
numbers of felonious robbers of private 
character and virtue, that no honest or good 
man is safe ; especially as these cowardly, 
base assassins stab in the dark, without 
having the courage to sign their real names 
to their malevolent and wicked productions. 
A writer, who signs himself Junius, in the 
Public Advertiser of the 21st instant, opens 
the deplorable situation of this country in a 
very affecting manner ; with a pompous 
parade of his candour and decency, he tells 
us, that we see dissensions in all parts of 
the empire, an universal spirit of distrust 
and dissatisfaction, and a total loss of 
respect towards us in the eyes of foreign 
powers. But this writer, with all his 
boasted candour, has not told us the real 
cause of the evils he so pathetically enumer- 
ates. I shall take the liberty to explain the 
cause for him. Junius, and such writers 
as himself, occasion all the mischiefs com- 
plained of, by falsely and maliciously 
traducing the best characters in the king- 
dom. For when our deluded people at 
home, and foreigners abroad, read the 
poisonous and inflammatory libels that are 
daily published with impunity, to vilify 
those who are any way distinguished by 
their good qualities and eminent virtues ; 
when they find no notice taken of, or reply 
given to, these slanderous tongues and 
pens, their conclusion is, that both the 
ministers and the nation have been fairly 
described, and they act accordingly. I 
think it therefore the duty of every good 
citizen to stand forth, and endeavour to 
undeceive the public, when the vilest arts 
are made use of to defame and blacken 
the brightest characters among us. An 
eminent author affirms it to be almost as 
criminal to hear a worthy man traduced, 
without attempting his justification, as to 
be the author of the calumny against him. 



For my own part, I think it a sort of mis- 
prision of treason against society. No man 
therefore who knows lord Granby, can 
possibly hear so good and great a character 
most vilely abused, without a warm and 
just indignation against this Junius, this 
high-priest of envy, malice, and all un- 
charitableness, who has endeavoured to 
sacrifice our beloved commander-in-chief 
at the altars of his horrid deities. Nor is 
the injury done to his Lordship alone, but 
to the whole nation, which may too soon 
feel the contempt, and consequently the 
attacks, of our late enemies, if they can be 
induced to believe that the person on 
whom the safety of these kingdoms so 
much depends, is unequal to his high 
station, and destitute of those qualities 
which form a good general. One would 
have thought that his Lordship's services in 
the cause of his country, from the battle of 
Culloden to his most glorious conclusion of 
the late war, might have entitled him to 
common respect and decency at least ; but 
this uncandid, indecent writer, has gone so 
far as to turn one of the most amiable men 
of the age, into a stupid, unfeeling, and 
senseless being ; possessed indeed of a per- 
sonal courage, but void of those essential 
qualities which distinguish the commander 
from the common soldier. 

A very long, uninterrupted, impartial, 
and I will add, a most disinterested friend- 
ship with lord Granby, gives me the right to 
affirm, that all JUNius's assertions are false 
and scandalous. Lord Granby's courage, 
though of the brightest and most ardent 
kind, is among the lowest of his numerous 
good quaUties ; he was formed to excel in 
war by nature's liberality to his mind as well 
as person. Educated and instructed by his 
most noble father, and a most spirited as 
well as excellent scholar, the present bishop 
of Bangor,! he was trained to the nicest 
sense of honour, and to the truest and 
noblest sort of pride, that of never doing or 
suffering a mean action. A sincere love 
and attachment to his king and country, 



Dr John Ewer. — Edit. 



134 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



and to their glory, first impelled him to the 
field, where he never gained aught but 
honour. He impaired, through his bounty, 
his own fortune ; for his bounty, which this 
writer would in vain depreciate, is founded 
upon the noblest of the human affections, 
it flows from a heart melting to goodness 
from the most refined humanity. Can a 
man, who is described as unfeeling, and 
void of reflection, be constantly employed 
in seeking proper objects on whom to ex- 
ercise those glorious virtues of compassion 
and generosity ? The distressed officer, the 
soldier, the widow, the orphan, and a long 
list besides, know that vanity has no share 
in his frequent donations ; he gives, be- 
cause he feels their distresses. Nor has he 
ever been rapacious with one hand to be 
bountiful with the other ; yet this uncandid 
Junius would insinuate, that the dignity 
of the commander-in-chief is depraved 
into the base office of a commission broker ; 
that is, lord Granby bargains for the sale of 
commissions ; for it must have this mean- 
ing, if it has any at all. Rut where is the 
man living who can justly charge his Lord- 
ship with such mean practices ? Why does 
not Junius produce him? Junius knows 
that he has no other means of wounding 
this hero, than from some missile weapon, 
shot from an obscure corner : He seeks, 
as all such defamatory writers do, 

spargere voces 

In vulgutn ambiguas 



to raise suspicion in the minds of the people. 
But I hope that my countrymen will be 
no longer imposed upon by artful and de- 
signing men, or by wretches, who, bank- 
rupts in business, in fame, and in fortune, 
mean nothing more than to involve this 
country in the same common ruin with 
themselves. Hence it is, that they are con- 
stantly aiming their dark, and too often 
fatal, weapons against those who stand 
forth as the bulwark of our national safety. 
Lord Granby was too conspicuous a mark 
not to be their object. He is next attacked 
for being unfaithful to his promises and en- 
gagements : Where are Junius's proofs? 
Although I could give some instances, 



where a breach of promise would be a 
virtue, especially in the case of those who 
would pervert the open, unsuspecting mo- 
ments of convivial mirth, into sly, insidious 
applications for preferment, or party sys- 
tems, and would endeavour to surprise a 
good man, who cannot bear to see anyone 
leave him dissatisfied, into unguarded 
promises. Lord Granby's attention to his 
own family and relations is called selfish. 
Had he not attended to them, when fair 
and just opportunities presented themselves, 
I should have thought him unfeeling and 
void of reflection indeed. How are any 
man's friends or relations to be provided 
for, but from the influence and protection 
of the patron ? It is unfair to suppose that 
lord Granby's friends have not as much 
merit as the friends of any other great man : 
If he is generous at the pubhc expense, as 
Junius invidiously calls it, the pubHc is at 
no more expense for his Lordship's friends, 
than it would be if any other set of men 
possessed those offices. The charge is 
ridiculous ! 

The last charge against lord Granby is of 
a most serious and alarming nature indeed. 
Junius asserts, that the army is mouldering 
away for want of the direction of a man of 
common abilities and spirit. The present 
condition of the army gives the directest lie 
to his assertions. It was never upon a 
more respectable footing with regard to 
discipline, and all the essentials that can 
form good soldiers. Lord Ligonier de- 
Uvered a firm and noble palladium of our 
safeties into lord Granby's hands, who has 
kept it in the same good order in which he 
received it. The strictest care has been 
taken to fill up the vacant commissions, 
with such gentlemen as have the glory of 
their ancestors to support, as well as their 
own, and are doubly bound to the cause of 
their king and country, from motives of 
private property, as well as public spirit. 
The adjutant-general,! ^ho has the imme- 
diate care of the troops after lord Granby, 
is an officer who would do great honour to 

* Harvey.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



135 



any service in Europe, for his correct 
arrangements, good sense and discernment 
upon all occasions, and for a punctuality 
and precision which give the most entire 
satisfaction to all who are obliged to con- 
sult hini. The reviewing generals, who 
inspect the army twice a year, have been 
selected with the greatest care, and have 
answered the important trust reposed in 
them in the most laudable manner. Their 
reports of the condition of the army are 
much more to be credited than those of 
Junius, whom I do advise to atone for his 
shameful aspersions, by asking pardon of 
lord Granby, and the whole kingdom, 
whom he has offended by his abominable 
scandals. In short, to turn JUNius's own 
battery against him, I must assert, in his 
own words, ' that he has given strong 
assertions without proof, declamation with- 
out argument, and violent censures without 
dignity or moderation.' 

WILLIAM DRAPER.i 



LETTER III. 

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF 

THE BATH. 

Sir, 7 February, 1769. 

The defence of lord Granby does 

^ As a correspondent of Junius in this and 
several other letters, the following short notice 
of sir Wilham Draper cannot be unacceptable to 
the reader. We take it by Mr Chalmers's per- 
mission froni his Appendix to the Supplemental 
Apology for the Believers in the supposititious 
Siiakespeare papers, p. 80. 

' Sir William, as a scholar, had been bred at 
Eton, and King's college, Cambridge ; but he 
chose the sword for his profession. In India, he 
ranked with those famous warriors, Clive and 
Laurence. In 1761, he acted at Bellisle, as a 
Brigadier. In 1763, he commanded the troops 
who conquered Manilla, which place was saved 
from plunder, by the promise of a ransom, that 
was never paid. His first appearance, as an 
able writer, was in his clear refutation of the 
objections of the Spanish court. His services 
were rewarded with the command of the six- 
teenth regiment of foot, which he resigned to 
colonel Gisborne, for his half-pay of ^200 Irish : 
This common transaction furnished Junius with 
many a sarcasm. Sir William had scarcely 
closed his contest with that formidable opponent, 
when he had the misfortune to lose his wife, who 
died on the ist of September, 1769. As he was 



honour to the goodness of your heart. You 
feel, as you ought to do, for the reputation of 
your friend, and you express yourself in the 
warmest language of the passions. In any 
other cause, I doubt not, you would have 
cautiously weighed the consequences of 
committing your name to the licentious 
discourses and malignant opinions of the 
world. But here, I presume, you thought 
it would be a breach of friendship to lose 
one moment in consulting your understand- 
ing ; as if an appeal to the public were no 
more than a military coup de main, where a 
brave man has no rules to follow, but the 
dictates of his courage. Touched with 
your generosity, I freely forgive the excesses 
into which it has led you ; and, far from 
resenting those terms of reproach, which, 
considering that you are an advocate for 
decorum, you have heaped upon me rather 
too liberally, I place them to the account 
of an honest unreflecting indignation, in 
which your cooler judgment and natural 
politeness had no concern. I approve of 
the spirit with which you have given your 
name to the public ; and, if it were a proof 
of any thing but spirit, I should have 
thought myself bound to follow your exam- 
ple. I should have hoped that even my 
name might carry some authority with it,2 



foiled, he was, no doubt, mortified. And he set 
out, in October of that year, to make the tour of 
the Northern Colonies, which had now become 
objects of notice, and scenes of travel. He 
arrived at Charlestown, South Carolina, in Jan- 
uary, 1770 ; and travelling northward, he arrived, 
during the summer of that year, in Maryland ; 
where he was received with that hospitality 
which she always paid to strangers, and with the 
attentions, that were due to the merit of such a 
visitor. 

' From Maryland, sir William passed on to 
New York, where he married Miss De Lancy, a 
lady of great connexions there, and agreeable 
endowments, who died in 1778 ; leaving him a 
daughter. In 1779, he was appointed lieutenant- 
governor of Minorca ; a trust, which, however 
discharged, ended unhappily. He died at Bath, 
on the 8th of January, 1787.' — Edit. 

- This expression will receive some farther 
light from a feature of himself incidentally in- 
troduced by the author in a letter omitted in his 
own edition, but inserted in the present work, 
Miscellaneous Letter, No. LIV., as also from 
other views of his sentiments and conduct as 
casually evinced in the Private Letters. — Edit. 



136 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



if I had not seen how very little weight or 
consideration a printed paper receives even 
from the respectable signature of sir 
William Draper. 

You begin with a general assertion, that 
writers, such as I am, are the real cause of 
all the public evils we complain of. And 
do you really think, sir William, that the 
licentious pen of a political writer is able 
to produce such important effects? A little 
calm reflection might have shown you, that 
national calamities do not arise from the 
description, but from the real character and 
conduct of ministers. To have supported 
your assertion, you should have proved that 
the present ministry are unquestionably the 
best and brightest characters of the king- 
dom : and that, if the affections of the 
colonies have been alienated, if Corsica ^ 
has been shamefully abandoned, if com- 
merce languishes, if public credit is threat- 
ened with a new debt, and your own Ma- 
nilla ransom most dishonourably given up, 2 
it has all been owing to the malice of po- 
litical writers, who will not suffer the best 
and brightest of characters (meaning still 
the present ministry) to take a single right 
step for the honour or interest of the nation. 
But it seems you were a little tender of 
coming to particulars. Your conscience 



^ Corsica, in modern times, was first sub- 
jugated by the Genoese, who made use of so 
much insolence and oppression, as to induce the 
natives to throw off the yoke, and endeavour to 
recover theirindependence. The contest was long 
and severe, and the Corsicans were reduced to 
beggary in the generous struggle. Nieuhoff and 
Paoli chiefly figured as leaders of the Corsicans, 
the first of whom was actually elected king, but 
could not maintain his throne against the in- 
vaders. The Corsicans applied to many foreign 
courts for assistance, and among the rest to 
Great Britain ; and lord Shelburne (afterwards 
marquis of Lansdown) was one of the warmest 
supporters of their cause, and most desirous, 
when in administration, to engage in it. But his 
colleagues opposed him, and the cause of Corsica 
was abandoned, though the citizens of London 
contributed largely to its support. Yet the { 
Genoese could not totally subdue it ; and in con- j 
sequence they sold it to France to be subdued by | 
the French arms : and the tyranny which was at 
first exercised over it by the Genoese, it was now \ 
doomed to suffer from the French. Reader, 



insinuated to yotf, that it would be prudent 
to leave the characters of Grafton, North, 
Hillsborough, Weymouth, and Mansfield, 
to shift for themselves ; and truly, sir 
William, the part you have undertaken is 
at least as much as you are equal to. 

Without disputing lord Granby's courage, 
we are yet to learn in what articles of mili- 
tary knowledge nature has been so very 
liberal to his mind. If you have served 
with him, you ought to have pointed out 
some instances of able disposition and 
well-concerted enterprise, which might 
fairly be attributed to his capacity as a 
general. It is you, sir William, who make 
your friend appear aukward and ridiculous, 
by giving him a laced suit of tawdry qualifi- 
cations, which nature never intended him 
to wear. 

You say, he has acquired nothing but 
honour in the field. Is the Ordnance no- 
thing? Are the Blues nothing? Is the 
command of the army, with all the patron- 
age annexed to it, nothing ? Where he got 
these nothings I know not ; but you at 
least ought to have told us where he de- 
served them. 

As to his bounty, compassion, &c., it 
\>ould have been but little to the purpose, 
though you had proved all that you have 



mark the result ! — Corsica is at this moment 
reaping an ample revenge : for through the me- 



dium of Bonaparte she is now loading both 
France and Genoa with as severe a tyranny as 
herself ever submitted to from either. — Edit. 

^ In the preceding war with Spain, sir William 
(then col. Draper) had commanded an expedition 
against the Spanish settlements in the Philippine 
Isles. It succeeded completely ; and the capital 
of Manilla was taken by assault. Yet the gen- 
erous conquerors, instead of plundering the city, 
consented to accept for the value of the spoil, 
bills drawn upon the Spanish government ade- 
quate to its supposed amount. These bills the 
Spanish government undertook to pay, but dis- 
honourably forfeited its word on their becoming 
due. Sir William Draper, on his return from 
India, repeatedly pressed the English minister 
to interpose upon the subject, on behalf of him- 
self and his fellow-soldiers. The English minister 
however did not interpose : Draper was person- 
ally rewarded by an election into the order of the 
Bath, in conjunction with certain pecuniary 
emoluments referred to in this correspondence ; 
while his colleague, admiral Cornish, together 
with the soldiers and sailors under their com- 
mands, were suffered to live and die altogether 
without redress. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



137 



asserted. I meddle with nothing bat his 
character as commander-in-chief ; and 
though I acquit him of the baseness of 
seUing commissions, I still assert that his 
military cares have never extended beyond 
the disposal of vacancies ; and I am justi- 
fied by the complaints of the whole array, 
when I say that, in this distribution, he 
consults nothing but parliamentary inte- 
rests, or the gratification of his immediate 
dependants. As to his servile submission 
to the reigning ministry, let me ask, whe- 
ther he did not desert the cause of the 
whole army, when he suffered sir Jeffery 
Amherst to be sacrificed, ^ and what share 
he had in recalling that officer to the serv- 
ice? Did he not betray the just interests 
of the army, in permitting lord Percy to 
have a regiment ? And does he not at this 
moment give up all character and dignity 
as a gentleman, in receding from his own 
repeated declarations in favour of Mr 
Wilkes? 

In the two next articles I think we are 
agreed. You candidly admit, that he often 
makes such promises as it is a virtue in 
him to violate, and that no man is more 
assiduous to provide for his relations at the 
pubUc expense. I did not urge the last as 
an absolute vice in his disposition, but to 
prove that a careless disinterested spirit is 
no part of his character ; and as to the 
other, I desire it may be remembered, that 
/ never descended to the indecency of en- 
quiring into his convivial hours. It is you, 
sir WiUiam Draper, who have taken pains 
to represent your friend in the character of 
a drunken landlord, who deals out his 
promises as liberally as his liquor, and will 
suffer no man to leave his table either sor- 
rowful or sober. None but an intimate 
friend, who must frequently have seen him 
in these unhappy, disgraceful moments, 
could have described him so well. 

The last charge, of the neglect of the 
army, is indeed the most material of all. I 
am sorry to tell you, sir Wilham, that, in 
this article, your first fact is false ; and 
as there is nothing more painful to me than 
to give a direct contradiction to a gentleman 



of your appearance, I could wish that, in 
your future publications, you would pay a 
greater attention to the truth of your pre- 
mises, before you suffer your genius to 
hurry you to a conclusion. Lord Ligonier 
did not deliver the army (which you, in 
classical language, are pleased to call a 
palladium) into lord Granby's hands. It 
was taken from him much against his in- 
clination, some two or three years before 
lord Granby was commander-in-chief. As 
to the state of the army, I should be glad 
to know where you have received your in- 
teUigence. Was it in the rooms at Bath, 
or at your retreat at Clifton ? The reports 
of reviewing generals comprehend only a 
few regiments in England, which, as they 
are immediately under the royal inspection, 
are perhaps in some tolerable order. But 
do you know any thing of the troops in the 
West Indies, the Mediterranean, and North 
America, to say nothing of a whole army 
absolutely ruined in Ireland? Inquire a 
little into facts, sir William, before you 
publish your next panegyric upon lord 
Granby, and believe me, you will find there 
is a fault at head-quarters, which even the 
acknowledged care and abilities of the 
adjutant-general cannot correct. ^ 

Permit me now, sir William, to address 
myself personally to you, by way of thanks 
for the honour of your correspondence. 
You are by no means undeserving of notice; 
and it may be of consequence even to lord 
Granby to have it determined, Avhether or 
no the man who has praised him so lavishly, 
be himself deserving of praise. When you 
returned to Europe, you zealously under- 
took the cause of that gallant army, by 
whose bravery at Manilla your own fortune 
had been established. You complained, 
you threatened, you even appealed to the 
public in print. By what accident did it 
happen, that in the midst of all this bustle, 
and all these clamours for justice to your 
injured troops, the name of the Manilla 



^ See upon this subject our author's Miscel- 
laneous Letters subscribed Lucius, and particu- 
larly that of Atticus, Letter LI.— Edit. 

^ Adjutant general Harysy. — Edit. 



rss 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ransom was suddenly buried in a profound, 
and, since that time, an uninterrupted 
silence? Did the ministry suggest any 
motives to you strong enough to tempt a 
man of honour to desert and betray the 
cause of his fellow-soldiers ? Was it that 
blushing ribband, which is now the per- 
petual ornament of your person ? Or was 
it that regiment, which you afterwards (a 
thing unprecedented among soldiers) sold 
to colonel Gisborne? Or was it that govern- 
ment, the full pay of which you are con- 
tented to hold, with the half-pay of an 
Irish colonel? And do you now, after a 
retreat not very hke that of Scipio, presume 
to intrude yourself, unthought-of, uncalled- 
for, upon the patience of the public ? Are 
your flatteries of the commander-in-chief 
directed to another regiment, which you 
may again dispose of on the sarrie honour- 
able terms ? We know your prudence, sir 
William, and I should be sorry to stop your 
preferment. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER IV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 February, 1769. 

I RECEIVED JUNius's favour last 
night ; he is determined to keep his advan- 



^ Whether such a conclusion were forced or 
natural from sir William's description of his 
friend, Junius, it seems, was not the only person 
who deduced it, if we may judge from a dispute 
the Knight of the Bath was involved in upon 
this very subject, with two other invisible cor- 
respondents, of whom the one signed himself 
Neocles, and the other the Ghost, and who 
wrote in the same newspaper (The Public Ad- 
vertiser). To the first correspondent, sir William 
replies as follows. 

Sir, Clifton, Feb. 13, 1769. 

I must beg the favour of Neocles not to 
believe that I have described my friend to be 
frequently in a state of ebriety. Had I done so, 
I might indeed be justly accused of being insuf- 
ficient to support his cause. 

If Neocles is an officer, or a man of business, 
he must know that a commander-in-chief, or a 
minister of state, from a multiplicity of applica- 



tage by the help of his mask ; it is an excel- 
lent protection, it has saved many a man 
from an untimely end. But whenever he 
will be honest enough to lay it aside, avow 
himself, and produce the face which has so 
long lurked behind it, the world will be 
able to judge of his motives for writing 
such infamous invectives. His real name 
will discover his freedom and independency, 
or his servility to a faction. Disappointed 
ambition, resentment for defeated hopes, 
and desire of revenge, assume but too often 
the appearance of public spirit ; but be his 
designs wicked or charitable, Junius should 
learn that it is possible to condemn mea- 
sures, without a barbarous and criminal 
outrage against men. Junius delights to 
mangle carcases with a hatchet ; his lan- 
guage and instrument have a great con- 
nection with Clare-market, and, to do him 
justice, he handles his weapon most ad- 
mirably. One would imagine he had been 
taught to throw it by the savages of 
America. It is therefore high time for me 
to step in once more to shield my friend 
from this merciless weapon, although I may 
be wounded in the attempt. But I must 
first ask Junius, by what forced analogy 
and construction the moments of convivial 
mirth are made to signify indecency, a vio- 
lation of engagements, a drunken landlord, 
and a desire that every one in company 
should be drunk likewise ? ^ He must have 



tions, cannot trust their memories with the whole 
of them : minutes and memorandums are neces- 
sary : when business is over, these are left with 
their secretaries, or in their bureaus. Should 
therefore any insidious man, either at dinner, or 
after dinner, importune a great person to give him 
some preferment, which, from the want of these 
minutes, he might not then recollect to be en- 
gaged, and thus obtain a promise of it ; yet, if it 
should appear from the inspection of these 
memorandums afterwards, that such preferment 
was pre-engaged, I must again repeat, that in 
such a case it would be a virtue to break the un- 
guarded promise made at dinner, or in convivial 
mirth, and to adhere to the first engagement. 
These things have happened, do happen, and may 
happen again, to the most temperate men living. 
I am 

Neocles' most humble servant, 

W. D. 
The fact is, that lord Granby, and his friend 
sir William, appear to have been both jolly com- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



139 



culled all the flowers of St Giles's and Bil- 
lingsgate to have produced such a piece of 

panions. Mr Campbell says of the latter — that 
his favourite wine was Burgundy — the bewitch- 
ing smiles of which had an irresistible influence 
on his heart. — Life of Boyd, p. 186. Junius 
seems to have appealed to a known fact, as well 
as to an unguarded expression of the pen. Sir 
William's answer to the Ghost occurs in the same 
Newspaper, Mar. 2, 1769. 

' Sir, _ Clifton, Feb. 24. 

' Sir W. D. presents his compliments to 
the Ghost, and hopes, that when he shall please to 
revisit us, the cock may not crow too suddenly, 
and warn him hence, before he has sufficiently 
considered what sir W. says with regard to anony- 
mous writers. They are not condemned by him 
nierely for being anonymous, but as they are 
defamatory and wicked ; as they act as incendi- 
aries, as XhQy prill ily shoot at those who are tr7ie 
0/ heart, and as they basely stab in the dark. 
When they are thus guilty, they are worthy of 
the severest censures. A very fine writer, Mr 
Addison, has not stuck to rank them with mur- 
derers and assassins. It were to be wished, that 
all such writers would read the paper upon this 
subject, No. 451, Vol. VI. Sir W. hopes like- 
wise, that the Ghost will not believe that flattery, 
or gladiatorial vanity, or any desire of the golden 
cup, or its contents, called him forth. 

' He stood forth upon a principle that no honest 
man should be ashamed of, upon the principle of 
Horace, who nobly and truly said, 

A ynicuvz 

Qui noil defendit, alio culpante — Hie nigerest ; 

more especially when that friend is most unjustly 
attacked. He thinks that a real signature is 
better than a fictitious one, as the knowledge of 
the man is the surest guide to form a judgment 
of his motives for writing. He has indeed the 
vanity to think that no man living writes from 
more disinterested motives than himself, having 
studiously quitted what is called the great world 
and all its pursuits. But he is not so totally 
lost to the sense of worldly knowledge, as not to 
foresee that the many distractions of this poor 
afflicted country must end in its ruin, if some 
salutary means are not speedily taken to prevent 
it. This kingdom abounds with great men, 
capable of advising and of acting in the most 
efficacious manner for the public good ; but 
unanimity must be the basis. If they can be 
prevailed upon to forgive, to forget, to 7cnite, 
sincerely, there is no occasion to despair of the 
commonwealth. Sir W. cannot subscribe to the 
Ghost's opinion, that the vox populi is the vox 
Dei. It would be too irreverent, it would vainly 
attempt to convert the immutable Deity into a 
most changeable and capricious being; nor would 
he take eveii the Ghost's word, or that of the 
greatest lawyer in the kingdom, should he affirm 
it. The voice of the people was heard loudly 
and strongly in favour of our great minister, Mr 
Pitt. In this one instance it was just ; but was 



oratory. Here the hatchet descends with 
tenfold vengeance ; but, alas I it hurts no 



it formerly less strong, less loud, in the favour 
of Titus Gates, the most abandoned of men? The 
voice of the people, and the voice of truth, are 
not always together : the latter must descend 
from above, the former but too often arises from 
below. In plain English, it generally comes out 
of the barrel and the cellar, as some honest bottle- 
men know full well.' 

In the following letter, inserted in the Public 
Advertiser about the same time, lord Granby 
appears to have found a fuller, if not an abler, 
advocate than even his friend sir William. It 
has various claims for an introduction in the 
present place ; but chiefly, because Junius him- 
self, in a postscript to Letter V. (inserted in the 
copy that appeared in the Public Advertiser, but 
omitted in his own edition) notices it with a 
view of answering it ; although from a second 
resolution, not to reply under this signature to 
anonymous addresses, he never fulfilled his in- 
tention. The postscript is as foljows : 

'I had determined to leave the commander-in- 
chief in the quiet enjoyment of his friend and his 
bottle ; but Titus deserves an answer, and shall 
have a complete one.' 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 

Long and impatiently have I waited to 
see justice done to a much-injured character. 
From the goodness of the cause, my expecta- 
tions were great, but I have been cruelly disap- 
p(5inted. To enter the lists against such an able 
antagonist upon equal terms, would be the height 
of presumption ; but truth, plainly and simply 
told, I doubt not, will show itself superior to 
falsehood, though dressed in the most beautiful 
language of the elegant Junius. 

Unprejudiced by party, unbiassed by faction, 
it grieves me exceedingly, that a spirit of licen- 
tiousness should be able so far to influence some 
of the greatest geniuses of tliis nation. Is it pos- 
sible .to see without concern some of the most 
respectable names, and the most unexceptionable 
characters, so undeservedly attacked, and detrac- 
tion conveyed in the most persuasive language, 
from the masterly pen of an accomplished 
writer ? When every man of superior talents 
ought to exert himself to the utmost to support 
the dignity of government, how unfortunate is it 
that the greatest abilities are made subservient 
to a factious spirit, totally subversive of all the 
principles of social happiness ! But the times are 
become so unpardonably licentious, that the 
greater the name, the higher the rank, the more 
dignified the character, and the more exahed the 
station, the more they become the objects of 
envy, while the envenomed darts of illiberal 
abuse are pointed by the sons of sedition from 
every quarter, with unparalleled malice and un- 
relenting fury. 

Subordination and subjection is the province 



140 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



one but its master ! For Junius must not 
think to put words into my mouth, that 
seem too foul even for his own. 



of some ; superiority and command undoubtedly 
belongs to the station of others. Obedience to 
the laws, respect for the magistrate, and duty to 
superiors, are essentially necessary in every well- 
governed state. Every attempt then to make 
the laws, or the magistrate, be less respected, 
and every endeavour to break the chain of subor- 
dination, so necessary in civil society, tends to 
the destruction of government, and to the intro- 
tion of anarchy and confusion. 

That factious, turbulent, licentious minds 
should make this their constant employment, is 
not to be wondered at ; but for people of sense, 
judgment, and abilities, to make it their study, is 
amazing indeed! — What end can it answer? 
What purpose can it serve ? If our superiors 
should do any thing contrary to the laws, or pre- 
judicial to the interests of this country ; if they 
should use any means to encroach upon our 
liberties, to deprive us of our privileges, or to 
subvert that happy form of government which 
we now enjoy ; surely there are other means 
of redress left, besides calumniating magis- 
trates, judges, generals, and ministers. Though 
party prejudice, and the influence of passion, 
may carry even men of sense to extraordinary 
lengths sometimes, yet I am convinced that a 
cool dispassionate moment's reflection, will point 
out more constitutional remedies for all our mis- 
fortunes, than a factious appeal to a giddy, un- 
thinking, uninformed mob : and very little 
demonstration will be necessary to make it 
evident, that the unbounded abuse of dignities, 
tends to make the bulk of the people trample on 
all law, despise subordination, and destroy that 
government from which they claim protection. 

Junius is possessed of superior abilities ; he 
has a flow of fine language at his command, his 
composition is masterly, his style elegant, and 
the arrangement of his words is beautiful and har- 
monious. What excellent purposes might these 
talents serve, were they employed for the service 
of his country ! What a pity they should be 
prostituted to depreciate government, and made 
subservient to such unphilosophic passions ! un- 
worthy of the man — unworthy of the pen of the 
accomplished Junius !— Not one of ;the king's 
servants escapes him ; but (for what cause heaven 
knows) his most pointed shafts have been directed 
against the commander-in-chief, who is, perhaps, 
the most unexceptionable character in the present 
administration. I was in hopes sir W. Draper 
would have continued a defence so worthy of his 
abilities ; but I imagine he is so busy at present 
about building his temple to Concord, and per- 
haps so taken up with his new friend, Mr Wilkes, 
that he has forgot the correspondence he gave 
rise to, where lord Granby is attacked in a most 
unpardonable manner ; where he has been in- 
sulted as a soldier, despised as a general, his 
generosity laughed at, and even his private 
hours of social relaxation have been most un- 



My friend's political engagements I know 
not, so cannot pretend to explain them, or 
assert their consistency. I know not 

generously held up as an object of ridicule to the 
public eye. — For shame, Junius ! — this was not 
well done. — Whatever censure may be due to a 
man's public character, it is unmanly— it is cruel 
— it is unjust, to bring the secrets of social 
amusement, and the unguarded hour of convi- 
vial enjoyment, to be held out as an object of 
censure to the unfriendly world ! — Have you 
a spark of generosity left, Junius ! and can you 
read this without a blush ? 

My lord Granby's character, as a man, as a 
soldier, and even as a general, will stand the 
test. The honesty of his heart, the integrity of 
his intentions, his intrepidity as a soldier, and 
his conduct as an officer, are unimpeached. It is 
true, his talents as commander-in-chief have never 
been tried in the field ; but if we may be allowed 
to judge from the whole of his conduct during the 
late war in Germany, where the execution of 
many important enterprises were entrusted to 
him by one of the greatest generals, and one of 
the best judges of military merit, in Europe, we 
may form great expectations, with the highest 
probability of not being disappointed. — He 
knows how to obey ; he knows that a good 
soldier never disputes the commands of his 
superior. He always discharged his duty to the 
satisfaction of duke Ferdinand, whose approba- 
tion, thanks, and acknowledgments he repeatedly 
obtained. Wherever he was employed, he gained 
honour to himself— he was beloved and esteemed 
by the army under his command — he was hon- 
oured and respected by the enemy — dear to the 
victors I generous to the vanquished ! You know, 
Junius, that he feared not to lead on the 
cavalry at Minden. He gained glory and honour 
at Warburg. It was the corps under his com- 
mand who fought and gained the battle of Phil- 
linghausen. He was principally concerned, and 
acted as became the soldier and general, at Wil- 
helmstahl. And towards the end of the war, when 
the army was so situated, that if a rising ground 
on the left had been taken possession of by the 
French, it might have been attended with the 
worst consequences ; and when the generals des- 
tined to lead a corps to occupy it, declared the ser- 
vice impracticable, my lord Granby arose from a 
sick-bed, in the middle of the night assumed the 
command of the corps, marched, with a fever 
upon him, in an inclement season, took posses- 
sion of the post, and secured the army. — This did 
the soldier ! 

Is it necessary to ask where my Lord deserved 
every thing he has got after this ? These are but 
few instances, among many others, where his 
Lordship acquired unfading laurels. But after 
all, what are the posts — what are the employ- 
ments of trust and profit which he has centered 
in himself and family, since he became com- 
mander-in-chief? He is at the head of the army 
without pay ; one of the name of Manners has 
been promoted from half-pay to a troop, and 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



141 



whether Junius be considerable enough to 
belong to any party ; if he should be so, 
can he affirm that he has always adhered 
to one set of men and measures ? Is he 
sure that he has never sided with those 
whom he was first hired to abuse ? Has he 
never abused those he was hired to praise ? 
To say the truth, most men's politics sit 
much too loosely about them. But as my 
friend's military character was the chief 
object that engaged me in this controversy, 
to that I shall return. 

Junius asks what instances my friend 
has given of his military skill and capacity 
as a general ? When and where he gained 
his honour ? When he deserved his emolu- 
ments? The united voice of the army 
which served under him, the glorious testi- 
mony of prince Ferdinand, and of van- 
quished enemies, all Germany will tell him. 
Junius repeats the complaints of the army 
against parliamentary influence. I love the 

another he has appointed his aide-de-camp : and 
those of his friends who have been distinguished 
by royal favour, are so eminent in their profes- 
sion, that hitherto the tongue ot malice has not 
dared to move against them. His own employ- 
ments are marks of royal favour and confidence, 
the consequence of long and faithful services. — 
These were not acquired by factious conduct, or 
licentious scribbling: no, Sir, he, like every man 
of honour, would disdain to be distinguished by 
such inglorious means. 

Well do you know, Junius, that it would have 
been in vain for my lord Granby to have opposed 
the nomination of my lord Percy ; and you know 
as well, that this is not the first time ministerial 
influence has been too powerful for a military 
commander. It is equally ungenerous and unjust 
therefore, to say that he has betrayed the inter- 
ests of the army. It is well known, that the 
general condition of the army is better, much 
better, at present than it has been for many 
years, even in America, and the garrisons abroad : 
your information therefore is ill founded in this 
point ; but the truth is, Junius is no friend to 
lord Granby, and is willing to believe, and ready 
to propagate, every infamous report to his disad- 
vantage. 

My lord Granby's generosity. Sir, knows no 
bounds ; but it is directed to much nobler objects 
than you would endeavour to insinuate. Often 
have I seen his generous hand stretched out to 
supply the wants of the needy soldier ; nor did the 
meanest follower of the camp go hungry from 
his door. His house was open equally to British 
and foreigners : his table was hospitality itself, 
and his generous, open countenance gave a 
hearty welcome to all his guests. Hence har- 



army too well, not to wish that such influ- 
ence were less. Let Junius point out the 
time when it has not prevailed. It was of 
the least force in the time of that great 
man, the late duke of Cumberland, who, 
as a prince of the blood, was able as well 
as willing to stem a torrent which would 
have overborne any private subject. In 
time of war this influence is small. In 
peace, when discontent and faction have 
the surest means to operate, especially in 
this country, and when, from a scarcity of 
public spirit, the wheels of government are 
rarely moved but by the power and force 
of obligations, its weight is always too great. 
Yet, if this influence at present has done no 
greater harm than the placing earl Percy at 
the head of a regiment, I do not think that 
either tlie rights or best interests of the army 
are sacrificed and betrayed, or the nation 
undone. Let me ask Junius, if he knows 



mony reigned through the whole army, disputes 
had no existence, and ofliicers of different nations 
emulated the social virtues of the British chief. 
By such means he gained the hearts of all the 
army ; they followed him with confidence, and 
fought under him from attachment. No danger 
was too much — no attempt too daring, under his 
command Whatever Junius may think (though 
he may, for aught I know, be perfectly utiac- 
quainted with them himself) the gaining the 
affections of the soldiers will always be esteemed 
no mean qualification in a general. 

My lord Granby has his foibles and weaknesses, 
no doubt of it ; so has every man. Is there one 
on earth perfect 1 But to expose these foibles 
and weaknesses with all the power of persuasive 
language, while lyou conceal, slightly pass over, 
or endeavour to ridicule those shining parts of 
his character, those eminent virtues which you 
ca7inot imitate, it is ungenerous, and very unlike 
the gentleman. 

You will forgive me, I hope, Mr Printer, for 
troubling you with an epistle of such an amazing 
length ; but I hope you will think with me that 
the subject required it. I acknowledge myself 
very unequal to speak of my Lord as he deserves ; 
but I have attempted this much, from an opinion, 
that when such an unexceptionable character is 
attacked, the defence becomes a public concern. 
It matters not, whether the malicious dart be 
pointed from the closet courage of a disgraced 
soldier, the oratorical powers of a disappointed 
dependant politician, or from the mad ravings of 
a lunatic adventurer ; the sensible, unprejudiced 
part of mankind will see their infamous motives, 
and they will alike despise the illiberal produc- 
tion and the ungenerous author. 

TITUS.— Edit. 



142 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



any one nobleman in the army, who has 
had a regiment by seniority ? I feel myself 
happy in seeing young noblemen of illus- 
trious nam6 and great property come 
among us. They are an additional se- 
curity to the kingdom from foreign or 
domestic slavery. JUNiUvS needs not be 
told, that should the time ever come, when 
this nation is to be defended only by those, 
who have nothing more to lose than their 
arms and their pay, its danger will be great 
indeed. A happy mixture of men of quality 
with soldiers of fortune is always to be 
wished for. But the main point is still to 
be contended for, I mean the discipline and 
condition of the army, and I still must 
maintain, though contradicted by Junius, 
that it was never upon a more respectable 
footing, as to all the essentials that can 
form good soldiers, than it is at present. 
Junius is forced to allow that our army at 
home may be in some tolerable order ; yet 
how kindly does he invite our late enemies 
to the invasion of Ireland, by assuring them 
that the army in that kingdom is totally 
ruined ! (The colonels of that army are 
much obliged to him.) I have too great 
an opinion of the military talents of the 
lord-heutenant, and of their diligence and 
capacity, to believe it. If from some 
strange, unaccountable fatality, the people 
of that kingdom cannot be induced to con- 
sult their own security, by such an effectual 
augmentation, as may enable the troops 
there to act with power and energy, is the 
commander-in-chief here to blame? Or 
is he to blame, because the troops in the 
Mediterranean, in the West Indies, in 
America, labour under great difficulties from 
the scarcity of men, which is but too visible 
all over these kingdoms ! Many of our 
forces are in climates unfavourable to British 
constitutions : their loss is in proportion. 
Britain must recruit all these regiments 
from her own emaciated bosom, or, more 
precariously, by Catholics from Ireland. 
We are likewise subject to the fatal drains 
to the East Indies, to Senegal, and the 
alarming emigrations of our people to other 
countries : Such depopulation can only be 



repaired by a long peace, or by some sen- 
sible bill of naturalization. 

I must now take the liberty to talk to 
Junius on my own account. He is pleased 
to tell me that he addresses himself to me 
personally. I shall be glad to see him. It 
is his impersonality that I complain of, and 
his invisible attacks ; for his dagger in the 
air is only to be regarded, because one can- 
not see the hand which holds it ; but had 
he not wounded other people more deeply 
than myself, I should not have obtruded 
myself at all on the patience of the public. 

Mark how a plain tale shall put him 
down, and transfuse the blush of my rib- 
band into his own cheeks. Junius tells 
me, that, at my return, I zealously under- 
took the cause of the gallant army, by 
whose bravery at Manilla my own fortunes 
were established ; that I complained, that 
I even appealed to the public. I did so ; 
I glory in having done so, as I had an un- 
doubted right to vindicate my own charac- 
ter, attacked by a Spanish memorial, and 
to assert the rights of my brave companions. 
I glory likewise that I have never taken up 
my pen, but to vindicate the injured. Ju- 
nius asks by what accident did it happen, 
that in the midst of all this bustle, and all 
these clamours for justice to the injured 
troops, the Manilla ransom was suddenly 
buried in a profound, and, since that time, 
an uninterrupted silence? I will explain 
the cause to the public. The several min- 
isters who have been employed since that 
time have been very desirous to do us jus- 
tice from two most laudable motives, a 
strong inclination to assist injured bravery, 
and to acquire a well, deserved popularity to 
themselves. Their efforts have been in vain. 
I Some were ingenuous enough to own, that 
they could not think of involving this dis- 
tressed nation into another war for our pri- 
vate concerns. In short, our rights for the 
present are sacrificed to national conveni- 
ence ; and I must confess, that although I 
may lose five-and -twenty thousand pounds 
by their acquiescence to this breach of faith 
in the Spaniards, I think they are in the 
right to temporize, considering the critical 



L 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



143 



situation of this country, convulsed in every 
part t)y poison infused by anonymous, 
wicked, and incendiary writers. Lord 
Sheiburne will do me the justice to own, 
that, in September last, I waited upon him 
with a joint memorial -from the admiral sir 
S. Cornish and myself, in behalf of our in- 
jured companions. His Lordship was as 
frank upon the occasion as other secretaries 
had been before him. He did not deceive 
us by giving any immediate hopes of relief. 

Junius would basely insinuate, that my 
silence may have been purchased by my 
government, by my blushing ribband, by 
my regiment, by the sale of that regiment, 
and by my half-pay as an Irish colonel. 

His Majesty was pleased to give me my 
government,! for my services at Madras. 
I had my first regiment in 1757. Upon 
my return from Manilla, his Majesty, by 
lord Egremont, informed me, that I should 
have the first vacant red ribband, as a re- 
ward for my services in an enterprise, which 
I had planned as well as executed. The 
duke of Bedford and Mr Grenville confirm- 
ed those assurances many months before 
the Spaniards had protested the ransom 
bills. To accommodate lord Clive, then 
going upon a most important service to 
Bengal, I waved my claim to the vacancy 
which then happened. As there was no 
other vacancy until the duke of Grafton 
and lord Rockingham were joint ministers, 
I was then honoured with the order, and it 
is surely no small honour to me, that in 
such a succession of ministers, they were 
all pleased to think that I had deserved it ; 
in my favour they were all united. Upon 
the reduction of the 79th regiment, which 
had served so gloriously in the East Indies, 
his Majesty, unsolicited by me, gave me 
the i6th of foot as an equivalent. My mo- 



^ Yarmouth.— Edit. 

^ The letter, as it appeared in the Public Ad- 
vertiser, stated, by mistake, ' tiuelve hundred 
pounds Irish annuity ! ' and the error has been 
hitherto propagated through every edition of 
JuNius's Letters, without a single exception. In 
a note addressed to the printer, however, and 
published in the same newspaper, Feb. 22, 1769, 
the mistake is announced, and corrected as fol- 
lows. 



tives for retiring afterwards are foreign to 
the purpose ; let it suffice, that his Majesty 
was pleased to approve of them ; they are 
such as no man can think indecent, who 
knov,s the shocks that repeated vicissitudes 
of heat and cold, of dangerous and sickly 
climates, will give to the best constitutions 
in a pretty long course of service. I re- 
signed my regiment to colonel Gisborne, a 
very good ofiicer, for his half-pay, and 
^200 Irish annuity ;2 so that, according to 
Junius, I have been bribed to say nothing 
more of the Manilla ransom, and sacrifice 
those brave men by the strange avarice of 
accepting three hundred and eighty pounds 
per annum, and giving up eight hundred ! 
If this be bribery, it is not the bribery of 
these times. As to my flattery, those who 
know me will judge of it. By the asperity 
of JUNlUS's style, I cannot indeed call him 
a flatterer, unless it be as a cynic or a mas- 
tiff ; if he wags his tail, he will still growl, 
and long to bite. The public will now 
judge of the credit that ought to be given 
to JUNius's writings, from the falsities that 
he has insinuated with respect to myself. 
WILLIAM DRAPER. 



LETTER V. 



TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF 
THE BATH. 

Sir, 21 February, 1769. 

I SHOULD justly be suspected of 
acting upon motives of more than common 
enmity to lord Granby, if I continued to 
give you fresh materials or occasion for 
writing in his defence. Individuals who 
hate, and the public who despise him, have 
read your letters, sir William, with in- 
finitely more satisfaction than mine. Un- 
fortunately for him, his reputation, like 



Sir, ^ , 

I BEG the favour of you to correct the 
following error in my answer to Junius. 

Instead of ;^ 1200 please to put, ' and ;^2oo Irish 
annuity.' 

I am, Sir, 

Yours, &c. 

W. DRAPER. 
Feb. 19. Edit. 



144 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



that unhappy country to which you refer 
me for his last military achievements, has 
suiTered more by his friends than his ene- 
mies. In mercy to him, let us drop the 
subject. For my own part, I willingly 
leave it to the public to determine whether 
your vindication of your friend has been as 
able and judicious, as it was certainly well 
intended ; and you, I think, may be satis- 
fied with the warm acknowledgments he 
already owes you, for making him the prin- 
cipal figure in a piece, in which, but for 
your amicable assistance, he might have 
passed without particular notice or distinc- 
tion. 

In justice to your friends, let your future 
labours be confined to the care of your own 
reputation. Your declaration, that you 
are happy in seeing young noblemen come 
among us, is liable to two objections. 
With respect to lord Percy, it means no- 
thing, for he was ali-eady in the army. He 
was aid-de-camp to the kmg, and had the 
rank of colonel. A regiment therefore 
could not make him a more military man, 
though it made him richer, and probably 
at the expense of some brave, deserving, 
friendless officer. — The other concerns 
yourself. After selling the companions of 
your victory in one instance, and after sell- 
ing your profession in the other, by what 
authority do you presume to call yourself 
a soldier? The plain evidence of facts is 
superior to all declarations. Before you 
were appointed to the i6th regiment, your 
complaints were a distress to government ; 
— from that moment you were silent. The 
conclusion is inevitable. You insinuate to 
us that your ill state of health obliged you 
to quit the service. The retirement neces- 
sary to repair a broken constitution would 
have been as good a reason for not accept- 
ing, as for resigning the command of a 
regiment. There is certainly an error of 
the press, or an affected obscurity in that 
paragraph, where you speak of your bar- 
gain with colonel Gisborne.^ Instead of 
attempting to answer what I really do not 

^ See the error corrected in the editor's note 
to the preceding Letter.— Edit. 



understand^ permit me to explain to the 
public what I really know. In exchange 
for your regiment, you accepted of a col- 
onel's half-pay (at least ^220 a year) 
and an annuity of ;i^2oo for your own and 

lady Draper's life jointly. And is this 

the losing bargain, which you would 
represent to us, as if you had given up an 
income of ^800 a year for_^38o? Was it 
decent, was it honourable, in a man who 
pretends to love the army, and calls himself 
a soldier, to make a traffic of the royal 
favour, and turn the highest honour of an 
active profession into a sordid provision for 
himself and his family? It were unworthy 
of me to press you farther. The contempt 
with which the whole army heard of the 
manner of your retreat, assures me that as 
your conduct was not justified by precedent, 
it will never be thought an example for 
imitation. 

The last and most important question re- 
mains. When you receive your half-pay, 
do you, or do you not, take a solemn oath, 
or sign a declaration upon honour, to the 
following effect ? That you do not actually 
hold any place of profit, civil or military, 
under his Majesty. The charge which this 
question plainly conveys against you, is of 
so shocking a complexion, that I sincerely 
wish you may be able to answer it well, not 
merely for the colour of your reputation, 
but for your own inward peace of mind. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 27 February, 1769. 

I HAVE a very short answer for 
JUNius's important question : I do not 
either take an oath, or declare upon honour, 
that I have no place of profit, civil or 
military, when I receive the half-pay as an 
Irish colonel. My most gracious sovereign 
gives it me as a pension ; he was pleased 
to think I deserved it. The annuity of 
^200 Irish, and the equivalent for the half- 
pay together, produce no more than ;^38o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



145 



per annum, clear of fees and perquisites of 
office. I receive ^^167 from my government 
of Yarmouth. Total ;^547 per annum. 
My conscience is much at ease in these 
particulars ; my friends need not blush for 
me. 

Junius makes much and frequent use of 
interrogations : they are arms that may be 
easily turned against himself, I could, by 
malicious interrogations, disturb the peace 
of the most virtuous man in the kingdom ; 
I could take the decalogue, and say to one 
man, Did you never steal? To the next. 
Did you never commit murder? And to 
Junius himself, who is putting my life 
and conduct to the rack. Did you never 
bear false witness against thy neighbour ? 
Junius must easily see, that unless he 
affirms the contrary in his real name, some 
people who may be as ignorant of him as I 
am, will be apt to suspect him of having 
deviated a little from the truth : therefore 
let Junius ask no more questions. You bite 
against a file : cease, viper. 

W. D. 



LETTER VII. 



TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF 
THE BATH. 

Sir, 3 March, 1769. 

An academical education has 
given you an unlimited command over the 
most beautiful figures of speech. Masks, 
hatchets, racks, and vipers dance through 
your letters in all the mazes of metaphorical 
confusion. These are the gloomy com- 
panions of a disturbed imagination ; the 
melancholy madness of poetry, without the 

^ This man, being committed by the Court of 
King's Bench for a contempt, voluntarily made 
oath, that he would never answer interrogatories, 
unless he should be put to the torture. — Author. 

Bingley was by trade a printer ; and in the 
character here referred to, a witness for the 
crown, in a cause between government and 
Wilkes. It is difficult to say for what purpose 
this man was subpoenaed on either side ; for his 
obstinacy was so extreme, that he could 'not be 
induced to answer the interrogatories addressed 
to him on the part either cf the plaintiff" or 
defendant. It was on this account he was com- 
mitted to the King's Bench prison, where he 



inspiration. I will not contend with you in 
point of composition. You are a scholar, 
sir William, and, if I am truly informed, 
you write Latin with almost as much purity 
as English. Suffer me then, for I am a 
plain unlettered man, to continue that style 
of interrogation, which suits my capacity, 
and \.o which, considering the readiness of 
your answers, you ought to have no objec- 
tion. Even Mr Bingley^ promises to answer, 
if put to the torture. 

Do you then really think that, if I were 
to ask a most virtuous man whether he ever 
committed theft, or murder, it would dis- 
turb his peace of mind ? Such a question 
might perhaps discompose the gravity of 
his muscles, but I believe it would little 
affect the tranquillity of his conscience. 
Examine your own breast, sir William, and 
you will discover, that reproaches and en- 
quiries have no power to afflict either the 
man of unblemished integrity, or the 
abandoned profligate. It is the middle 
compound character which alone is vul- 
nerable ; the man who, without firmness 
enough to avoid a dishonourable action, 
has feeling enough to be ashamed of it. 

I thank you for your hint of the deca- 
logue, and shall take an opportunity of 
applying it to some of your Tnost virtuous 
friends in both Houses of parhament. 

You seem to have dropped the affair of 
your regiment ; so let it rest. When you 
are appointed to another, I dare say you 
will not sell it either for a gross sum, or for 
an annuity upon lives. 

I am truly glad (for really, sir William, I 
am not your enemy, nor did I begin this 
contest with you 2) that you have been able 



continued as refractory as in the King's Bench 
Court — he was at length discharged, on the 
motion of the attorney-general, without any sub- 
mission on his own part, from the mere idea that 
he had suffered severely enough for his con- 
tumacy. — See a further account of this transac- 
tion, Letter XLI., p. 247, note. — Edit. 

- The politics of sir William Draper were cer- 
tainly not violent, and he appears to have been 
rather a private friend of the marquis's than a 
partisan on either side of the question. The fol- 
lowing letter, published by him in the Public 
Advertiser, in the verj' midst of his dispute with 
Junius, is highly creditable to his liberality, and 
10 



146 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to clear yourself of a crime, though at the 
expense of the highest indiscretion. You 



sufficiently proves the truth of the assertion of 
Junius, that he could not be, at least upon 
poHtical principles, sir William's enemy. 

TO THE PRINTER. 

Sir, Cliftott, February 6ih, 1769. 

If the voice of a well-meaning individual 
could be heard amidst the clamour, fury, and 
madness of the times, would it appear too rash 
and presumptuous to propose to the public, that 
an act of indemnity and oblivion may be made 
for all past transactions and offences, as well with 
respect to Mr Wilkes as to our colonies? Such 
salutary expedients have been embraced by the 
wisest of nations : such expedients have been 
made use of by our own, when the public con- 
fusion had arrived to some very dangerous and 
alarming crisis ; and I believe it needs not the 
gift of prophecy to foretell that some such crisis 
is now approaching. Perhaps it will be more 
wise_ and praiseworthy to make such an act im- 
mediately, in order to prevent the possibility 
(not to say the probability) of an insurrection at 
home and in our dependencies abroad, than it 
will be to be obliged to have recourse to one 
after the mischief has been done, and the king- 
dom_ has groaned under all the miseries that 
avarice, ambition, hypocrisy, and madness, could 
inflict upon it. An act of grace, indemnity, and 
oblivion, was passed at the restoration of king 
Charles the Second ; but I will venture to say 
that had such an act been seasonably passed in 
the reign of his unhappy father, the civil war had 
been prevented, and no restoration had been 
necessary. Is it too late to recall all the mes- 
sengers and edicts of wrath ? Cannot the money 
that is now wasted in endless and mutual prose- 
cutions, and in stopping the mouth of one person, 
and opening that of another, be better employed 
in erecting a temple to Concord ? Let Mr Wilkes 
lay the first stone, and such a stone as I hope the 
builders will not refuse. May this parliament, to 
use lord Clarendon's expression, be called ' The 
healing parliament ! ' May our foul wounds be 
cleansed and then closed ! • The English have 
been as famous for good-nature as for valour : 
let it not be said that such qualities are degener- 
ated into savage ferocity. If any of my friends 
in either House of legislature shall condescend to 
listen to and improve these hints, I shall think 
that I have not lived in vain. 

WILLIAM DRAPER. 

Sir William, in return, if he ever had any per- 
sonal enmity against Junius, appears to have 
relinquished it completely a short time after the 
contest, if we may judge from the following 
anecdote given by Mr Campbell in his Life of I 
Hugh Boyd, p. 247. j 

'Some months after the Letters of Junius ! 
were published collectively, Boyd met sir William 
Draper at the tennis court, where their acquaint- 
ance was originally formed in the year 1769, and 
where (being both great tennis plaj'ers) they 



say that your half-pay was given you by 
wa y of pension. I will not dwe ll upon the 
used often to meet ; the conversation turning 
upon Junius, sir William observed, 'That 
though Junius had treated him with extreme 
severity, he now looked upon him as a very 
honest fellow ; that he freely forgave him for the 
bitterness of his censures, and that there was no 
man with whom he would more gladly drink a 
bottle of old Burgundy.' — Edit. 

It has been said, and I believe truly, that it 
was signified to sir William Draper, as the request 
of lord Granby, that he should desist from 
writing in his Lordship's defence. Sir William 
Draper certainly drew Junius forward to say 
more of lord Granby's character than he origin- 
allyintended. He was reduced to the dilemma 
of either being totally silenced, or of supporting 
his first letter. Whether sir William had a right 
to reduce him to this dilemma, or to call upon 
him for his name, after a voluntary attack on his 
side, are questions submitted to the candour of 
the public— The death of lord Granby was la- 
mented by Junius. He undoubtedly owed some 
compensations to the public, and seemed deter- 
mined to acquit himself of them. In private life, 
he was unquestionably that good man, who, for 
the interest of his country, ought to have been a 
great one. Bofiwn virion facile dixeris ; — ma£^- 
nuvt libenter. I speak of him now without par- 
tiality ; — I never spoke of him with resentment. 
His mistakes, in public conduct, did not arise 
either from want of sentiment, or want of judg- 
ment, but in general from the difficulty of say- 
ing NO to the bad people v/ho surrounded him. 

As for the rest, the friends of lord Granby 
should remember, that he himself thought proper 
to condemn, retract, and disavow, by a most 
solemn declaration in the House of Commons, 
that very system of political conduct, which Ju- 
nius had held forth to the disapprobation of the 
public. — Author. 

This took place January the 30th, 1770, in a 
committee on the state of the nation, in which 
the affair of the Middlesex election was particu- 
larly discussed ; and on which occasion the mar- 
quis of Granby delivered himself as follows : — 

' I am sorry I am obliged to declare myself 
against the motion ; but I cannot see what right 
this House can have to receive any person into 
it as a member except by the full choice of his 
constituents. It was for want of considering the 
nice distinction between expulsion and incapaci- 
tation that I gave my vote for the sitting of a 
member who was not returned in the last session 
of this parliament. That vote I shall always 
lament as the greatest misfortune of my life. I 
now see the Aliddlesex election in another light : 
I now see that though this House has an unques- 
tionable and long-established right to expel, yet 
that a right to incapacitate is lodged only in the 
legislature collectively. I see that I was in an 
error, and I am not ashamed to make this public 
declaration of it, and give my vote for the 
amendment.' 

The behef of Junius, ' that it was signified to 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



147 



singularity of uniting in your own person 
two sorts of provision, which in their own 
nature, and in all military and parliament- 
ary views, are incompatible ; but I call upon 
you to justify that declaration, wherein you 
charge your sovereign with having done an 
act in your favour, notoriously against law. 
The half-pay, both in Ireland and England, 
is appropriated by parliament ; and if it be 
given ■ to persons who, like you, are legally 
incapable of holding it, it is a breach of law. 
It would have been more decent in you to 

sir W. D. as the request of lord G. that he 
should desist from writing in his Lordship's 
defence,' is farther confirmed by the following 
notice appended to a letter on the subject of this 
controversy, signed Aurelius, inserted in the 
Public Advertiser, March 11, 1769. 'We must 
now beg leave to drop this dispute, as the 
printer has received a hint that its continuance 
will be disagreeable.' 

Sir W. Draper, as far as lord Granby was 
implicated, dropped the subject ; though he sub- 
sequently wrote the following letter in defence 
of his own conduct, in which he again calls upon 
Junius to avow himself. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, Clifton, April -zd^tk, I'jiiq. 

A Gentleman who signed himself An 
Half-pay Subaltern, has called upon me to stand 
forth in the behalf of the much-distressed officers 
now upon half-pay. He was pleased to say, that 
I have an effectual method of being really ser- 
viceable to the officers of my reduced regiment. 
I should have been happy in receiving, by a 
private letter, that gentleman's idea of relief for 
them ; could have wished he had made use of a 
more agreeable mode of application than a pub- 
lic newspaper ; as unluckily these ill-seasoned 
provocatives are more apt to disgust than quicken 
the desire of doing good, especially when they 
are accompanied by invidious reflections, both 
rash and ill founded : at present I am quite at a 
loss to find out by what means a person out of 
parliament, who has long retired from the great 
world, and who of course has but very little 
influence or interest, can be of much use to those 
gallant and distressed gentlemen ; to many of 
whom I have the greatest obligations ; of which 
I have, upon all occasions, made the most public 
and grateful acknowledgments ; nor was there 
the smallest necessity to wake me in this loud 
manner to a remembrance of their important 
services, although the writer has been pleased to 
charge me wi\.\ifo7-getfulness ; a most heavy im- 
putation ! as it implies ingratitude towards those 
by whom I have been so essentially assisted, and 
to whom I am so much indebted for my good 
fortune ; which however is not so great as the 
gentleman imagines ; he himself forgets that the 



have called this dishonourable transaction 
by its true name ; a job to accommodate 
I two persons, by particular interest and 
management at the Castle. What sense 
must government have had of your services, 
when the rewards they have given you are 
only a disgrace to you ! 

And now, sir William, I shall take rriy 
leave of you for ever. Motives very differ- 
ent from any apprehension of your resent- 
ment, make it impossible you should ever 
know rne. In truth, you have some reason 



Spaniards have also forgot to pay the ransom. 
If he could quicken their memory, instead of 
mine, the officers would be more obliged to him. 
Their bravery has given me a competency, a 
golden fnediocrity, but not much affluence or 
luxury, which is a stranger to my house as well 
as to my thoughts ; and I here most solemnly 
declare (notwithstanding the false assertions of 
a Junius, who has told the world that I haidsold 
the partners of my victory, and then gravely 
aslced me if I were not guilty of perjury) that my 
income lis now less than when I first went to 
Manilla. It is true, that its being so is by my 
own choice : I am voluntarily upon an equivalent 
for half-pay ; and although I would most will- 
ingly stand forth in the service of my king and 
country, should the necessity of the times 
demand my poor assistance, yet I would not 
again accept of any regiment whatsoever, or 
interfere with the pretensions of those officers, 
whose good fortune has been less than their 
merits : and 1 here most .solemnly declare, that I 
never received either from the East India Com- 
pany, or from the Spaniards, directly or indi- 
rectly, any present or gratificatioii, or any 
circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to the 
amount of five shillings, during the whole course 
of the expedition, or afterwards, my legal prize- 
money excepted. The Spaniards know that I 
refused the sum of fifty thousand pounds offered 
me by the archbishop, to mitigate the terms of 
the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, 
instead of a whole one : so that had I been dis- 
posed to have basely sold the partners of my vic- 
tory, avarice herself could not have wished for a 
richer opportunity. 

The many base insinuations, that have been of 
late thrown out to my disadvantage in the pub- 
lic papers, oblige me to have recourse to the 
same channel for my vindication ; and flatter 
myself that the public will be candid enough not 
to impute it to arrogance, vanity, or the imperti- 
nence of egotism ; and hope that as much credit 
will be given to the assertions of a man, who is 
ready to seal his testimony with his blood, as to 
a writer, who when repeatedly called upon to 
avow_ himself, and personally maintain his ac- 
cusation, still skulks in the dark, or in the ineafi 
subterfuge of a mask. 

W. D. 



148 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to hold yourself indebted to me. From the 
lessons I have given you, you may collect a 
profitable instruction for your future life. 
They will either teach you so to regulate 
your conduct, as to be able to set the most 
malicious enquiries at defiance ; or, if that 
be a lost hope, they will teach you prudence 
enough not to attract the pubUc attention 
to a character, which will only pass without 
censure, when it passes without observ- 
ation. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER VIII. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 18 March, 1769. 

Before you were placed at the 
head of affairs, it had been a maxim of the 
English government, not unwiUingly ad- 
mitted by the people, that every ungracious 
or severe exertion of the prerogative should 
be placed to the account of the minister ; 
but that whenever an act of grace or bene- 
volence was to be performed, the whole 
merit of it should be attributed to the 
sovereign himself. 1 It was a wise doctrine, my 
Lord, and equally advantageous to the king 
and to his subjects ; for while it preserved 
that suspicious attention, with which the 
people ought always to examine the con- 
duct of ministers, it tended at the same 
time rather to increase than to diminish 
their attachment to the person of their 
sovereign. If there be not a fatahty at- 
tending every measure you are concerned 
in, by what treachery or by what excess 
of folly has it happened, that those un- 
gracious acts, which have distinguished 
your administration, and which I doubt not 
were entirely your own, should carry with 

^ Les rois ne se sont reserve que les graces, 
lis renvoient les condamnations vers leurs 
ofificiers. — Montesquieu. 

^ The contest for the Middlesex election, in 
which Wilkes, though an outlaw, was four times 
returned through the favour of the populace, was 
conducted on both sides with the utmost violence 
and outrage. The court as well as the popular 
party had its committees and its hired mobs. 
Edward M 'Quirk was one of the persons 
employed in the latter capacity, and how reso- 



them a strong appearance of personal in- 
terest, and even of personal enmity, in a 
quarter, where no such interest or enmity 
can be supposed to exist, without the 
highest injustice and the highest dishonour? 
On the other hand, by what judicious 
management have you contrived it, that 
the only act of mercy, to which you ever 
advised your sovereign, far from adding to 
the lustre of a character, truly gracious and 
benevolent, should be received with uni- 
versal disapprobation and disgust ? I shall 
consider it as a ministerial measure, because 
it is an odious one ; and as your measure, 
my Lord Duke, because you are the 
minister. 

As long as the trial of this chairman was 
depending, 2 it was natural enough that 
government should give him every possible 
encouragement and support. The honour- 
able service for which he was hired, and 
the spirit with which he performed it, made 
common cause between your Grace and 
him. The minister, who by secret corrup- 
tion invades the freedom of elections, and 
the ruffian, who by open violence destroys 
that freedom, are embarked in the same 
bottom. I'hey have the same interests, and 
mutually feel for each other. To do justice 
to your Grace's humanity, you felt for Mac- 
Quirk as you ought to do, and if you had 
been contented to assist him. indirectly, 
without a notorious denial of justice, or 
openly insulting the sense of the nation, 
you might have satisfied every duty of po- 
litical friendship, without committing the 
honour of your sovereign, or hazarding the 
reputation of his government. But when 
this unhappy man had been solemnly tried, 
convicted, and condemned ; — when it ap- 
peared that he had been frequently em- 
ployed in the same services, and that no 



lutely he fulfilled his office in heading one of the 
court mobs may be collected from his having been 
chiefly concerned in a fray, in which a man of 
the name of Clarke, belonging to the opposite 
mob, was killed. M'Quirk was committed to 
prison, and on his trial the jury found him guilty 
of murder, and he was of course condemned to 
be executed. By the advice of the minister, how- 
ever, his Majesty interposed with his royal grace, 
and M'Quirk was pardoned. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



149 



excuse for him could be drawn either from 
the innocence of his former life, or the 
simphcity of his character, was it not ha- 
zarding too much to interpose the strength 
of the prerogative between this felon and 
the justice of his country ? ^ You ought to 
have known that an example of this sort 
was never so necessary as at present ; and 
certainly you must have known that the lot 
could not have fallen upon a more guilty 
object. What system of government is 
this ? You are perpetually complaining of 
the riotous disposition of the lower class of 
people, yet when the laws have given you 
the means of making an example, in every 
sense unexceptionable, and by far the most 
likely to awe the multitude, you pardon the 
offence, and are not ashamed to give the 
sanction of government to the riots you 
complain of, and even to future murders. 
You are partial perhaps to the military mode 
of execution, and had rather see a score of 
these wretches butchered by the guards, 



' Whitehall, March 11, 1769. His Majesty 
has been graciously pleased to extend his royal 
mercy to Edward M 'Quirk, found guilty of the 
murder of George Clarke, as appears by his 
royal warrant to the tenor following. 
GEORGE R. 

Whereas a doubt had arisen in Our Royal 
breast concerning the evidence of the death of 
George Clarke, from the representations of Wil- 
liam Bromfield, Esq. surgeon, and Solomon Star- 
ling, apothecary ; both of whom, as has been 
represented to tjs, attended the deceased before 
his death, and expressed their opinions, that he 
did not die of the blow he received at Brentford : 
and whereas it appears to Us, that neither of the 
said persons were produced as witnesses upon 
the trial, though the said Solomon Starling had 
been examined before the coroner, and the only 
person called to prove that the death of the said 
George Clarke was occasioned by the said blow, 
was John Foot, surgeon, who never saw the 
deceased till after his death ; We thought fit 
thereupon to refer the said representations, to- 
gether with the report of the Recoi'der of Our 
city of London, of the evidence given by Richard 
and William Beale, and the said John Foot, on 
the trial of Edward Quirk, otherwise called Ed- 
ward Kirk, otherwise called Edward M 'Quirk, 
for the murder of the said Clarke, to the master, 
wardens, and the rest of the court of examin- 
ers of the Surgeons' company, commanding 
them likewise to take such further examina- 
tion of the said persons so representing, and of 
the said John Foot, as they might think neces- 
sary, together with the premises above-mentioned, 



than one of them suffer death by regular 
course of law.^ How does it happen, my 
Lord, that, in your hands, even the mercy 
of the prerogative is cruelty and oppression 
to the subject ? 

The measure it seems was so extraordin- 
ary, that you thought it necessary to give 
some reasons for it to the public. Let them 
be fairly examined . 

1. You say that .Messrs Bromfield and 
Starli7ig were not examined at MacQuirk' s 
trial. I will tell your Grace why they 
were not. They must have been examined 
upon oath ; and it was foreseen, that their 
evidence would either not benefit, or might 
be prejudicial to the prisoner. Otherwise, 
is it conceivable that his counsel should 
neglect to call in such material evidence ? 

2. You say that Mr Foot did not see the 
deceased zintil after his death. A surgeon, 
my Lord, must know very little of his pro- 
fession, if, upon examining a wound, or a 
contusion, he cannot determine whether 



to form and report to Us their opinion, 'Whether 
it did or did not appear to them, that the said 
George Clarke died in consequence of the blow 
he received in the riot at Brentford on the 8th of 
December last.' And the said court of examiners 
of the Surgeons' company having thereupon re- 
ported to Us their opinion, 'That it did not 
appear to them that he did ; ' We have thought 
proper to extend Our royal mercy to him the 
said Edward Quirk, otherwise Edward Kirk, 
otherwise called Edward M 'Quirk, and to grant 
him Our free pardon for the murder of the said 
George Clarke, of which he has been found 
guilty : Our will and pleasure therefore is. That 
he the said Edward Quirk, otherwise called Ed- 
ward Kirk, otherwise called Edward RI "Quirk, 
be inserted, for the said murder, in our first 
and next general pardon that shall come out 
for the poor convicts of Newgate, without any 
condition whatsoever ; and that in the mean time 
you take bail for his appearance, in order to plead 
Our said pardon. And for so doing this shall be 
your warrant. 

Given at Our court at St James's the 10th day 
of March, 1769, in the ninth year of our 
reign. 

By his Majesty's command, 

ROCHFORD. 
To Our trusty and well beloved James Eyre, 
Esq., Recorder of Our city of London, 
the Sheriffs of Our said city and county of 
Middlesex, and all others whom it ma}^ 
concern. 

^ See this subject farther touched upon in Mis- 
cellaneous Letter No. XXIV.,— Edit. 



I50 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



it was mortal or not. — While the party is 
ahve, a surgeon will be cautious of pro- 
nouncing? whereas, by the death of the 
patient, he is enabled to consider both 
cause and effect in one view, and to speak 
with a certainty confirmed by experience. 

Yet we are to thank your Grace for the 
establishment of a new tribunal. Your 
inquisitio post mortem is unknown to the 
laws of England, and does honour to your 
invention. 1 The only material objection to 
it is, that if Mr Foot's evidence was in- 
sufficient, because he did not examine the 
wound till after the death of the party, 
much less can a negative opinion, given by 
gentlemen who never saw the body of Mr 
Clarke, either before or after his decease, 
authorize you to supersede the verdict of a 
jury, and the sentence of the law. 

Now, my Lord, let me ask you, Has it 
never occurred to your Grace, while you 
were withdrawing this desperate wretch 
from that justice which the laws had 
awarded, and which the whole people of 
England demanded, against him, that there 
is another man, who is the favourite of his 
country, whose pardon would have been 

^ This sentence, in a note to one of the 
editions of the Letters of Junius, is said to have 
no correct meaning. 'Junius,' saj^s the com- 
mentator, ' thought that he had hit upon a 
forcible and quaintly allusive expression, hastily 
used it, and blundered into nonsense in the use.' 
The reader however shall now determme whether 
it is the author or the commentator who has 
blundered i7ito nonsense. 

The expression is, in fact, perfectly correct, 
though liable to be misunderstood without some 
attention. Every coroner's inquest, indeed, 
except in the cases of ship-wreck and treasure- 
trove, is, when exercised judicially, an inquisitio 
post mortem ; but it can only legally take place 
super visui7i corporis, ' on the sight of the corpse 
or dead body ; ' on the spot where the death was 
produced ; and by a jury summoned from the 
neighbourhood. In the instance before us none 
of these constitutional requisites were attended 
to ; and Junius might hence remark with the 
strictest accuracy, as well as the keenest irony, 
Your inquisitio post mortem is unknown to the 
laws of England. — Edit. 

^ John Wilkes, formerly, and before the duke 
of Grafton had abandoned the party of lord 
Chatham, and had formed a party for himself, 
was one of his Grace's most confidential friends. 
He was at this time confined in the King's Bench 
prison, having surrendered himself to the juris- 



accepted with gratitude, whose pardon 
would have healed all our divisions.? 2 
Have you quite forgotten that this man was 
once your Grace's friend ? Or is it to mur- 
derers only that you will extend the mercy 
of the crown ? 

These are questions you will not answer. 
Nor is it necessary. The character of your 
private life, and the uniform tenor of your 
pubhc conduct, is an answer to them all. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER IX. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 10 April, 1769. 

I HAVE so good an opinion of 
your Grace's discernment, that when the 
author of the vindication of your conduct 
assures us, that he writes from his own mere 
motion, without the least authority from 
your Grace, 3 I should be ready enough 
to beheve him, but for one fatal mark, 
which seems to be fixed upon every mea- 
sure, in which either your personal or your 
political character is concerned. — Your first 



j diction of the court of this name, by which the 
sentence of outlawry had been pronounced 
against him. The immediate cause of the minis- 
terial persecution of Wilkes, was the zeal with 
which he had opposed the existing cabinet, and 
especially the odium and disgrace in which the 
ministry had involved themselves by issuing a 
general warrant to seize all the papers and 
persons of whomsoever they suspected to be con- 
cerned in writing the forty-fifth number of the 
famous political and periodical paper called the 
North Briton, a joint publication of John Wilkes, 
Charles Churchill, and lord Temple. The 
question of general warrants was hereby neces- 
sarily brought before the public. The popular 
resentment was roused against the abettors of 
such a measure to the highest point of irasci- 
i bility ; and Wilkes, upon the next general elec- 
! tion that ensued, was chosen member of par- 
I liament for the county of Middlesex, notwith- 
I standing his outlawry, as a proof of the utter 
; contempt in which the ministry were at this 
I time held by the nation, rather than out of any 
personal regard for Wilkes himself, whose own 
misconduct must otherwise have been the ruin of 
him.— Edit. 

3 He alludes to a pamphlet containing a long 
and laboured vindication of the duke of Grafton, 
attributed to the pen of Mr Edward Weston, 
writer of the Gazette. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



151 



attempt to support sir William Proctor 
ended in the election of Mv Wilkes ; the 
second ensured success to ^Ir Glynn. The 
extraordinar}^ step you took to make sir 
James Lowther lord paramount of Cumber- 
land, has ruined his interest in that county 
for ever.i The House List of Directors 
was cursed with the concurrence of govern- 
ment; 2. and even the miserable Dingley 
could not escape the misfortune of your 
Grace's protection.^ With this uniform 
experience before iis, we are authorized to 
suspect, that when a pretended vindication 
of your principles and conduct in reality 
contains the bitterest reflections upon both, 
it could not have been written without your 
immediate direction and assistance. The 
author, indeed, calls God to witness for him, 
with all the sincerity, and in the very terms 
of an Irish evidence, ^0 the best of his k?2ozu- 
ledge a?id belief. My Lord, you should not 
encourage these appeals to Heaven. The 
pious Prince, from whom you are supposed 
to descend, made such frequent use of them 
in his public declarations, that at last the 
people also found it necessary to appeal to 
Heaven in their turn. Your administration 
has driven us into circumstances of equal 
distress ; beware at least how you re- 
mind us of the remedy. 

You have already much to answer for. 
You have provoked this unhappy gentleman 
to play the fool once more in public life, in 
spite of his years and infirmities, and to 
.show us, that, as you yourself are a singu- 
lar instance of youth without spirit, the 
man who defends you is a no less remarka- 
ble example of age without the benefit of 
experience. To follow such a writer 
minutely would, like his own periods, be a 
labour without end. The subject too has 
been already discussed, and is sufficiently 



^ See note upon the Nullum Tempus bill, 
Letter LVII., in which the contest between sir 
James Lowther and the duke of Portland is 
detailed at large. — Edit. 

_" At this period the whole four and twenty 
directors were annually chosen, and ten gentle- 
men, whose names were not inserted in the house 
list, were elected, notwithstanding the influence 
of government was e.xerted in its support. — Edit. 



understood. I cannot help observing, how- 
ever, that, when the pardon of MacQuirk 
was the principal charge against you, it 
would have been but a decent compliment 
to your Grace's understanding, to have de- 
fended you upon your own principles. 
What credit does a man deserve, who tells 
us plainly, that the facts set forth in the 
king's proclamation were not the true 
motives on which the pardon was granted, 
and that he wishes that those chirurgical 
reports, which first gave occasion to certain 
doubts in the royal breast, had not been 
laid before his Majesty. You see, my 
Lord, that even your friends cannot defend 
your actions, without changing your princi- 
ples, nor justify a deliberate measure of 
government, without contradicting the 
main assertion on which it was founded. 

The conviction of MacQuirk had re- 
duced you to a dilemma, in which it was 
hardly possible for you to reconcile your 
political interest with your duty. You were 
obliged either to abandon an active useful 
partisan, or to protect a felon from public 
justice. With your usual spirit, you prer 
ferred your interest to every other consider- 
ation ; and with your usual judgment, you 
founded your determination upon the only 
motives, which should not have been given 
to the public. 

I have frequently censured Mr Wilkes's 
conduct, yet your advocate reproaches me 
with having devoted myself to the service 
of sedition. Your Grace can best inform 
us, for which of Mr Wilkes's good qualities 
you first honoured him with your friendship, 
or how long it was before you discovered 
those bad ones in him, at which, it seems, 
your deUcacy was offended. Remember, 
my Lord, that you continued your con- 
nexion with Mr Wilkes long after he had 
been convicted of those crimes, which you 



3 This unfortunate person had been persuaded 
by the duke of Grafton to set up for Middlesex, 
his Grace being determined to seat him in the 
House of Commons, if he had but a single vote. 
It happened unluckily, that he could not prevail 
upon any one freeholder to put him in nomina- 
tion, and it vv'as with difficulty he escaped out of 
the hands of the populace. 



152 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS, 



have since taken pains to represent in the 
blackest colours of blasphemy and treason. 
How unlucky is it, that the first instance 
you have given us of a scrupulous regard 
to decorum is united with the breach of a 
moral obligation ! For my own part, my 
Lord, I am proud to affirm, that, if I had 
been weak enough to form such a friend- 
ship, I would never have been base enough 
to betray it. But, let Mr Wilkes's charac- 
ter be what it may, this at least is certain, 
that, circumstanced as he is with regard 
to the public, even his vices plead for him. 
The people of England have too much 
discernment to suffer your Grace to take 
advantage of the failings of a private cha- 
racter, to establish a precedent by which 
the public liberty is affected, and which 
you may hereafter, with equal ease and 
satisfaction, employ to the ruin of the best 

men in the kingdom. Content yourself, 

my Lord, with the many advantages, which 
the unsullied purity of your own character 
has given you over your unhappy deserted 

^ Under the presumption that the pamphlet 
alluded to in the preceding letter, entitled a 
'Vindication of the Duke of Grafton,' was 
written by Mr Weston, and which was avowedly 
defended by the author, whoever he was, in the 
Public Advertiser, under the signature of a 
'Volunteer in the Government's Service,' the 
following short letter, addressed to that gentle- 
man, obviously from the pen of Junius, appeared 
in the same paper. 

TO THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD 
WESTON. 

Sir, ^/ri7 2o, 1769. 

Your age, though oppressed with bodily 
and mental infirmities, which, for the world's 
edification, you have published to it, demands 
some respect, or the cause you have embarked 
in would entitle you to none. The last glim- 
merings of your expiring taper, however, do your 
hero no honour ; and I fear the principle that has 
kindled it obtains you no credit. You are a privy 
counsellor in Ireland, writer of the Gazette, 
comptroller of the salt-office, a clerk of the sig- 
net, and a pensioner on the Irish establishment: 
such is the Volunteer ! And you may remember, 
when you were under secretary of state, the 
division of ;[^5oo among ten people left to your 
discretion, of which you 7nodestly claimed ^^400 
for yourself. So honest, so upright, and so dis- 
interested is the wrt« .' Let Junius be the dirty 
rascal you call him, I know, you know, and the 
world knows, luhat vou are.— QmTO. 

This letter produced a short reply from the 



friend. Avail yourself of all the unforgiv- 
ing piety of the court you live in, and bless 
God that you ' are not as other men are ; 
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as 
this publican.' In a heart void of feeling, 
the laws of honour and good faith may be 
violated with impunity, and there you may 
safely indulge your genius. But the laws 
of England shall not be violated, even by 
your holy zeal to oppress a sinner ; and 
though you have succeeded in making him 
the tool, you shall not make him the victim 
of your ambition. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER X. 



TO MR EDWARD WESTON. 

Sir, 21 April, 1769. 

I SAID you were an old man with- 
out the benefit of experience. It seems 
you are also a volunteer with a stipend of 
twenty commissions ; 1 and at a period 



Volunteer, in which he denies that Mr Weston is 
the author of the pamphlet, or of the letters under 
that signature, and one from Poetikastos, who 
attacks Junius in the following words : 

' You conclude your despicable vindication of 
an honour which you do not possess, by assert- 
ing " that you are a master in the art of repre- 
senting the treachery of the minister, and the 

abused simplicity of a " Villain ! of 

whom? You who write under the name of 
Junius, are a ba.se scoundrel. You lie ; and you 
may find out who gives you the lie.' 

These letters occasioned the under-written 



TO THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD 
WESTON. 

April ^T, 1769. 
The old fox has been unkennelled, 
but Is ashamed of his stinking tail. Either 
several people of Intelligence and consideration 
have been grossly deceived, or our doughty 
Volunteer declares upon his honour an untruth. 
I cannot believe a misinformation, unless the 
world should have thought that no impertinent, 
expectant old fellow, could have been found to 
dispatch so lame an errand but you. 

You seem ashamed of your generous distribu- 
tion : I applaud your modesty ! but it shall not 
be at the expense of truth. You did claim ;^4oo 
out oi £$00 for your otvn self ; and there are, I 
suppose, at least half a dozen people who can 
attest it. And you shall find that I dare say 
something else to your mortification, if you sup- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



153 



when all prospects are at an end, you are 
still looking forward to rewards, which you 
cannot enjoy. No man is better acquainted 
with the bounty of government than you 
are. 

to7i iinpJidence, 

Temeraire vieillard, aura sa recompense. 

But I will not descend to an altercation 
either wfth the impotence of your age, or 
the peevishness of your diseases. Your 
pamphlet,! ingenious as it is, has been so 
little read, that the pubHc cannot know 
how far you have a right to give me the lie, 
without the following citation of your own 
words. 

Page 6 — ' I. That he is persuaded that 
the motives, which he (Mr Weston) has 
alleged, must appear fully sufficient, with 
or without the opinions of the surgeons. 

' 2. That those very motives must have 
BEEN the foundation, on which the earl of 
Rochford thought proper, &c. 

' 3. That he cannot but regret that 
the earl of Rochford seems to have thought 
proper to lay the chirurgical reports before 
the king, in preference to all the other suf- 
ficient motives,' &c. 

Let the public determine whether this be 
defending government on their principles 
or your own. 

The style and language you have adopted 
are, I confess, not ill suited to the elegance 
of your own manners, or to the dignity of 
the cause you have undertaken. Every 

pose the world is not heartily tired of you, your 
petulance, and your crudities. 

I don't believe the governors of Bedlam in- 
dulge their patients with newspapers, or I should 
have supposed that Poetikastos had obtained his 
genteel residence there. The poor raving crea- 
ture bawls aloud for swords and pistols, and 
requires the last argument instead of the best. 
The public has pronounced upon his reason the 
judgment of Felo de se, from his own pen ; — I am 
so impressed with humanity as to wish the 
coroner may not have the trouble of passing the 
same sentence upon his person from his sword. 
I should, however, pity the elegant Junius, who 
well deserves the thanks of the independent 
public, if he was obliged to take notice of every 
fool, sycophant, and bully. — Crito. Edit. 

^ It is possible Junius, though his information 
was generally accurate, was incorrect in attribut- 
ing this pamphlet to Mr Weston. For, in a 
letter inserted by Mr Weston in the Public 



common dauber writes rascal and villain 
under his pictures, because the pictures 
themselves have neither character nor re- 
semblance. But the works of a master 
require no index. His features and colour- 
ing are taken from nature. The impression 
they make is immediate and uniform ; nor 
is it possible to mistake his characters, 
whether they represent the treachery of a 
minister, or the abused simplicity of a king. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER XL 



to his grace the duke of GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 24 April, 1769. 

The system you seemed to have 
adopted, when lord Chatham unexpectedly 
left you at the head of affairs, gave us no 
promise of that uncommon exertion of 
vigour, which has since illustrated your 
character, and distinguished your adminis- 
tration. Far from discovering a spirit bold 
enough to invade the first rights of the peo- 
ple, and the first principles of the constitu- 
tion, you were scrupulous of exercising even 
those powers, with which the executive 
branch of the legislature is legally invested. 
We have not yet forgotten how long Mr 
Wilkes was suffered to appear at large, nor 
how long he was at liberty to canvass for 
the city 2 and county, with all the terrors of 



Advertiser a few months afterwards, October 14, 
he solemnly denies his having written this and a 
variety of pamphlets and letters attributed to 
him. — Edit. _ 

^ Prior to his offering himself for the county of 
Middlesex, Wilkes had become a candidate for 
the metropolis, and it was in consequence of his 
failure in the city, that he pressed forwards to 
the county. The populace, in both cases, were 
so numerously and so violently attached to him, 
that many serious riots were the consequence ; 
and so outrageous were they in two or three in- 
stances, that the court party strenuously asserted 
that the city and even the palace itself were not 
free from danger. Of these riots, the two most 
serious that occurred, were on the meeting of 
parliament, when the populace surrounded the 
King's Bench prison from an expectation of see- 
ing Wilkes, who had then been elected member 
for Middlesex, liberated, in order to take his seat 
in the senate, in the course of which several per- 
sons were killed by the firing of the military, and 



154 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



an outlawry hanging over him.i Our gra- ; extraordinary care you took of his dignity 
cious sovereign has not yet forgotten the and of the safety of his person, when at a 



on the counter-address to that of the city being 
carried to St James's by those who were deputed 
for this purpose ; on which last occasion the Riot 
Act M'as read at the palace gate, and lord Talbot, 
the lord-steward, had his staff of office broken in 
his hand. — Edit. 

^ As Junius was extremely severe in his cen- 
sures on lord Mansfield, it is deemed a mere act 
of justice to extract a part of his Lordship's 
speech on the reversal of Mr Wilkes's outlawry, 
by which it will appear, such was the temper of 
the times, that the chief justice was even pri- 
vately threatened upon the occasion, should his 
decision of the cause be in opposition to the 
popular opinion of the day. The extract is well 
worthy the reader's perusal, as a specimen of 
eloquence not often equalled, and rarely ex- 
celled ; it forms the conclusion of his address. 

' I have now gone through the several errors 
assigned by the defendant, and which have been 
ingeniously argued and confidently relied on by 
his counsel at the bar ; I have given my senti- 
ments upon them, and if upon the whole, after 
the closest attention to what has been .said, and 
with the strongest inclination in favour of the 
defendant, no arguments which have been urged, 
no cases which have been cited, no reasons that 
occur to me, are sufficient to satisfy me in my 
conscience and judgment that this outlawry 
should be reversed, I am bound to affirm it — and 
here let me make a pause. 

' Many arguments have been suggested, both 
in and out of court, upon the consequences of 
establishing this outlawry, either as they may 
affect the defendant as an individual, or the 
public in general. As to the first, whatever they 
may be, the defendant has brought them upon 
himself; they are inevitable consequences of law 
arising from his own act ; if the penalty, to 
which he is thereby subjected, is more than a 
punishment adequate to the crime he has com- 
mitted, he should not have brought himself into 
this imfortunate predicament, bj' flying from the 
justice of his country ; he thought proper to do 
so, and he must take the fruits of his own con- 
duct, however bitter and unpalatable they may 
be ; and although we may be heartily sorry for 
any person who has brought himself intothis 
situation, it is not in our power, God forbid it 
should ever be in our power, to deliver him 
from it ; we cannot prevent the judgment of the 
law by creating irregularity in the proceedings ; 
we cannot prevent the consequence of that judg- 
ment by pardoning the crime ; if the defendant 
has any pretensions to mercy, those pretensions 
must be urged, and that power exercised, in 
another place, where the constitution has wisely 
and necessarily vested it : the crown will judge 
for itself; it does not belong to us to interfere 
with punishment, we have only to declare the 
law : none of us had any concern in the prosecu- 
tion of this business, nor any wishes upon the 
event of it ; it was not our fault that the defend- 



ant was prosecuted for the libels upon which he 
has been convicted ; I took no share in another 
place, in the measures which were taken to pro- 
secute him for one of them ; it was not our fault 
that he was convicted ; it was not our fault that 
he fled ; it was not our fault that he was outlawed ; 
it was not our fault that he rendered hunself 
up to justice ; none of us revived the prosecution 
against him, nor could any one of us stop that 
prosecution when it was revived ; it is not our 
fault if there are not any errors upon the record, 
nor is it in our power to create any if there are 
none ; we are bound by our oath and in our con- 
sciences, to give such a judgment as the law will 
warrant, and as our reason can prove ; such a 
judgment as we must stand or fall by, in the 
opinion of the present times, and of posterity ; in 
doing it, therefore, we must have regard to our 
reputation as honest men, and men of skill and 
knowledge competent to the stations we hold ; 
no considerations whatsoever should mislead us 
from this great object to which we ever ought, 
and I trust ever shall, direct our attention. But 
consequences of a public nature, reasons of state, 
political ones, have been strongly urged (private 
anonymous letters sent to me, I shall pass over), 
open avowed publications which have been 
judicially noticed, and may therefore be men- 
tioned, have endeavoured to influence or intimi- 
date the court, and so prevail upon us to trifle and 
prevaricate with God, our consciences, and the 
public : it has been intimated that consequences 
of a frightful nature will flow from the establish- 
ment of this outlawry ; it is said the people ex- 
pect the reversal, that the temper of the times 
demand it, that the multitude will have it so ; 
that the continuation of the outlawry in full 
force, will not be endured ; that the execution of 
the law upon the defendant will be resisted : 
these are arguments which will not weigh a 
feather with me. If insurrection and rebellion 
are to follow our determination, we have not to 
answer for the consequences, though we should 
be the innocent cause — we can only say, Fiat 
jnstitia, r?iat coehnn ; we shall discharge our 
duty without expectations of approbation, or the 
apprehensions of censure ; if v/e are subjected 
to the latter unjustly, we must submit to it ; 
we cannot prevent it, we will take care not to 
deserve it. He must be a weak man indeed who 
can be staggered by such a consideration. 

' The misapprehension or the misrepresenta- 
tion of the ignorant or the wicked, the Mendax 
Infaniia, v/hich is the consequence of both, are 
equally indifferent to, unworthy the attention of, 
and incapable of making any impression on, men 
of firmness and intrepidity.— Those who imagine 
judges are capable of being influenced by such 
unworthy, indirect means, most grossly deceive 
themselves ; and for my own part I trust that 
my temper, and the colour and conduct of my 
life, have clothed me with a suit of armour to 
shield me from such arrows. If I have ever 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



155 



crisis which courtiers affected to call alarm- 
ing, you left the metropoHs exposed for two 
nights together, to every species of riot and 
disorder. The security of the royal resid- 
ence from insult was then sufficiently pro- 
vided for in Mr Conway's firmness ^ and 
lord Weymouth's discretion ; while the 
prime minister of Great Britain, in a rural 
retirement, and in the arms of faded beauty, 2 
had lost all memory of his sovereign, his 
country, and himself. In these instances 
you might have acted with vigour, for you 
would have had the sanction of the laws to 
support you. The friends of government 
might have defended you without shame, 
and moderate men, who wish well to the 
peace and good order of society, might 
have had a pretence for applauding your 

supported the king's measures ; if I have ever 
afforded any assistance to government ; if I have 
discharged my duty as a public or private cha- 
racter, by endeavouring to preserve pure and 
perfect the principles of the constitution, main- 
taining unsullied the honour of the courts of 
justice, and by an upright administration of, to 
give a due effect to the laws, I have hitherto 
done it without any other gift or reward than 
that most pleasing and most honourable one, the 
conscientious conviction of doing what was 
right. I do not affect to scorn the opinion of 
mankind ; I wish earnestly for popularity ; I 
will seek and will have popularity ; but I will 
tell you how I will obtain it ; I will have that 
popularity which follows, and not that which is 
run after. It is not the applause of a day, it is 
not the huzzas of thousands, that can give a 
moment's satisfaction to a rational being ; that 
man's mind must indeed be a weak one, and his 
ambition of a most depraved sort, who can be 
captivated by such wretched allurements, or 
satisfied with such momentary gratifications. I 
say with the Roman orator, and can say it with 
as much truth as he did, ' Ego hoc aiiinio semper 
fid, lit i7ividlavi viriute J>a7-tavi, glariavi no7i 
vifamiaiii fmtarem : ' But the threats have been 
carried further ; personal violence has been de- 
nounced, unless public humour be complied with : 
I do not fear such threats ; I do not believe there 
is any reason to fear them ; it is not the genius 
of the worst of men in the worst of times to 
proceed to such shocking extremities : but if 
such an event should happen, let it be so ; even 
such an event might be productive of wholesome 
effects ; such a stroke might rouse the better 
part of the nation from their lethargic condition 
to a state of activity, to assert and execute the 
law, and punish the daring and impious hands 
which had violated it ; and those who now 
supinely behold the danger which threatens all 
liberty, from the most abandoned licentiousness, 



conduct. But these it seems were not 
occasions worthy of your Grace's interposi- 
tion. You reserved the proofs of your in- 
trepid spirit for trials of greater hazard and 
importance ; and now, as if the most dis- 
graceful relaxation of the executive au- 
thority had given you a claim of credit to 
indulge in excesses still more dangerous, 
you seem determined to compensate amply 
for your former negligence ; and to balance 
the non-execution of the laws with a breach 
of the constitution. From one extreme 
you suddenly start to the other, without 
leaving, between the weakness and the fury 
of the passions, one moment's interval for | 
the firmness of the understanding. j 

These observations, general as they are, | 
might easily be extended into a faithful 
history of your Grace's administration, and 

might, by such an event, be awakened to a 
sense of their situation, as drunken men are 
oftentimes stunned into sobriety. If the security 
of our persons and our property, of all we hold 
dear and valuable, are to depend upon the 
caprice of a giddy multitude, or to be at the dis- 
posal of a giddy mob; if, in compliance with the 
humours and to appease the clamours of those, 
all civil and political institutions are to be disre- 
garded or overthrown, a life somewhat more 
than sixty is not worth preserving at such a 
price, and he can never die too soon, who lays 
down his life in support and vindication of the 
policy, the government, and the constitution of 
his country.' — Edit. 

■^ The Hon. Henry Seymour Conway was 
brother to lord Hertford, and father of the 
present Mrs Darner, who constitutes indeed his 
only issue. He had enjoyed several places of 
high rank and confidence at court during the 
beginning of his Majesty's reign. After the 
prorogation of parliament, in the year 1764, G. 
Grenville, then first lord of the Treasury and 
chancellor of the Exchequer, in conjunction with 
the duke of Bedford, lord president, took from 
him his regiment and dismissed him from his office 
as groom of the bedchamber to the king, in conse- 
quence of having voted in the Lower House, in 
opposition to government, upon the question of 
General Warrants. Mr Conway was made a 
secretary of state in the Rockingham adminis- 
tration of 1765, and retained that post till lord 
Chatham, who succeeded lord Rockingham, 
quitted office in Oct. 1768. I\Ir C. was a man of 
an independent mind, but often wavering in his 
opinion, and like his favourite cousin, Horace 
Walpole, much attached to literature and the 
fine arts.— Edit. 

^ The duke of Grafton was, at that time, living 
with the celebrated Nancy Parsons, after\vards 
lady Maynard.— Edit. 



156 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



perhaps may be the employment of a future 
hour. But the business of the present 
moment will not suffer me to look back to 
a series of events, which cease to be interest- 
ing or important, because they are succeed- 
ed by a measure so singularly daring, that 
it excites all our attention, and engrosses 
all our resentment. 

Your patronage of Mr Luttrell has been 
crowned with success. ^ With this pre- 
cedent before you, with the principles on 
which it was established, and with a future 
House of Commons, perhaps less virtuous 
than the present, every county in England, 
under the auspices of the Treasury, may be 
represented as completely as the county of 
Middlesex. Posterity will be indebted to 

^ In the contest for the county of Middlesex, 
the House of Commons, on the 3rd of February, 
1769, had proceeded to the severe step of expel- 
ling Mr Wilkes, for, among other offences, repub- 
lishing, in the St James's Chronicle, lord Wey- 
mouth's letter to Mr Justice Ponton, one of the 
magistrates for Surry, with the ensuing prefa- 
tory remarks : ' I send you the following au- 
thentic state paper, the date of which, prior by 
more than three weeks to the fatal loth of May, 

1768, shows how long the horrid massacre in St 
George's Fields had been planned and deter- 
mined upon, before it was carried into execution, 
and how long a hellish project can be brooded 
over by some infernal spirits, without one 
moment's remorse.' Mr Wilkes having admitted 
the publication, the House resolved, ' That John 
Wilkes, Esq., a member of this House, who hath, 
at the bar of this House, confessed himself to be 
the author and publisher of what this House has 
resolved to be an insolent, scandalous, and 
seditious libel ; and who has been convicted in 
the Court of King's Bench, of having printed 
and published a seditious libel, and three obscene 
and impious libels ; and, by the judgment of the 
said court, has been sentenced to undergo 
twenty-two months' imprisonment, and is now in 
execution under the said judgment, be expelled 
this House,' which was carried in the affirmative 
by 219 against 137. On the i6th of February, 

1769, he was a second time returned for Middlesex 
without opposition. On the day following the 
election was vacated, and he was declared by a 
majority of the House, incapable of being elected 
into that parliament. Notwithstanding this reso- 
lution of the house, he was a third time, March 
ID, elected without opposition ; for Dingley, as 
before observed, had not been able to obtain even 
a nomination. This election, however, was also 
declared void the next day. The great mass 
of Middlesex freeholders were in consequence 
thrown into a more violent commotion than ever, 
and insisted upon their right to return whora- 



your Grace for not contenting yourself with 
a temporary expedient, but entailing upon 
them the immediate blessings of your ad- 
ministration. Boroughs were already too 
much at the mercy of government. Coun- 
ties could neither be purchased nor in- 
timidated. But their solemn determined 
election may be rejected, and the man they 
detest may be appointed, by another choice, 
to represent them in parhament. Yet it is 
admitted, that the sheriffs obeyed the laws 
and performed their duty. 2 The return 
they made must have been legal and valid, 
or undoubtedly they would have been cen- 
sured for making it. With every good- 
natured allowance for your Grace's youth 
and inexperience, there are some things 
which you cannot but know. You cannot 



soever they pleased, let parliament expel him as 
often as it pleased. Wilkes was a third time 
expelled : and to oppose him with a certainty of 
success, another device was now contrived, and 
under the promise that he should certainly be 
seated for the county in opposition to Wilkes, 
col. Luttrell was prevailed upon to relinquish 
the seat he then held, and to oppose him with all 
the force that could be mustered up on the occa- 
sion. With every possible effort exerted in his 
favour, however, Luttrell was incapable of 
obtaining more than two hundred and ninety-six 
votes, and Wilkes was again returned almost 
unanimously. The ministry were intimidated : 
but still resolved to carry their new device into 
effect. Wilkes was not now, therefore, to be 
openly re-expelled, but, which amounted to the 
same thing, to be declared incapable of sitting in 
parliament in consequence of his previous expul- 
sion, and Luttrell was of course declared the 
sitting member. Yet, with an incongruity not 
often to be parallelled, the sheriffs, instead of 
being punished, were admitted to have done 
their duty, in allowing Wilkes to have become a 
candidate, and in returning him as fairly elected. 

The nation at large now joined in the cause of 
the Middlesex freeholders ; the parliament from 
exercising the unconstitutional act of rejecting 
one person who was a real member of its body, 
without an adequate cause, and in admitting 
another person to be a member who had never 
been returned by a majority of votes, was 
declared to have passed into a state of political 
incapacity, every vote and act of which must 
necessarily be incompetent and illegislative, and 
the throne was thronged with petitions and 
remonstrances from every part of the kingdom 
beseeching his Majesty to dissolve it. — Edit. 

* Sir Fletcher Norton, when it was proposed 
to punish the sheriffs, declared in the House of 
Commons, that they, in returning Mr Wilkes, 
had done no more than their duty. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



157 



but know that the right of the freeholders 
to adhere to their choice (even supposing it 
improperly exerted), was as clear and in- 
disputable as that of the House of Com- 
mons to exclude one of their own members : 
— nor is it possible for you not to see the 
wide distance there is between the negative 
power of rejecting one man, and the posi- 
tive power of appointing another. The 
right of expulsion, in the most favourable 
sense, is no more than the custom of par- 
liament. The right of election is the very 
essence of the constitution. To violate 
that right, and much more to transfer it to 
any other set of men, is a step leading im- 
mediately to the dissolution of all govern- 
ment. So far forth as it operates, it con- 
stitutes a House of Commons which does 
not represent the people. A House of 
Commons so formed would involve a coii- 
tradiction and the grossest confusion of 
ideas ; but there are some ministers, my 
Lord, whose views can only be answered 
by reconciling absurdities, and making the 
same proposition, which is false and absurd 
in argument, true in fact. 

This measure, my Lord, is however at- 
tended with one consequence favourable to 
the people, which I am persuaded you did 
not foresee.i While the contest lay between 
the ministry and Mr Wilkes, his situation 
and private character gave you advantages 
over him, which common candour, if not 
the memory of your former friendship, 
should have forbidden you to make use of. 
To religious men, you had an opportunity 
of exaggerating the irregularities of his past 
life ; — to moderate men you held forth the 
pernicious consequences of faction. Men 
who, with this character, looked no farther 
than to the object before them, were not 
dissatisfied at seeing Mr Wilkes excluded 
from parhament. You have now taken 
care to shift the question ; or, rather, you 
have created a new one, in which Mr 
Wilkes is no more concerned than any 
other English gentleman. You have united 
this country against you on one grand con- 



The reader is desired to mark this prophecy. 
The duke, about this time, had separated 



stitutional point, on the decision of which 
our existence as a free people absoluif^ly 
depends. You have asserted, not in words 
but in fact, that representation in parlia- 
ment does not depend upon the choice of 
the freeholders. If such a case can possibly 
happen once, it may happen frequently ; it 
may happen always ; — and if three hundred 
votes, by any mode of reasoning whatso- 
ever, can prevail against twelve hundred, 
the same reasoning would equally have 
given Mr Luttrell his seat with ten votes, or 
even with one. The consequences of this 
attack upon the constitution are too plain 
and palpable not to alarm the dullest ap- 
prehension. I trust you will find that the 
people of England are neither deficient in 
spirit nor understanding, though you have 
treated them as if they had neither sense to 
feel nor spirit to resent. We have reason 
to thank God and our ancestors, that there 
never yet was a minister in this country 
who could stand the issue of such a conflict ; 
and with every prejudice in favour of your 
intentions, I see no such abiUties in your 
Grace, as should entitle you to succeed in 
an enterprise, in which the ablest and basest 
of your predecessors have found their de- 
struction. You may continue to deceive your 
gracious master with false representations 
of the temper and condition of his subjects. 
You may command a venal vote, because 
it is the common estabhshed appendage of 
your office. But never hope that the free- 
holders will make a tame surrender of their 
rights, or that an English army will join 
with you in overturning the liberties of their 
country. They know that their first duty, 
as citizens, is paramount to all subsequent 
engagements, nor will they prefer the dis- 
cipline, nor even the honours, of their pro- 
fession, to those sacred original rights, 
which belonged to them before they were 
soldiers, and which they claim and possess 
as the birthright of Englishmen. 

Return, my Lord, before it be too late, 
to that easy insipid system, which you first 
set out with. Take back your mistress ; ^ 



himself from Ann Parsons, but proposed to con- 
tinue united with her, on some platonic terms of 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



— the name of friend may be fatal to her, 
for it leads to treachery and persecution. 
Indulge the people. Attend Newmarket. 
Mr Luttrell may again vacate his seat ; and 
Mr Wilkes, if not persecuted, will soon be 
forgotten. To be weak and inactive is 
safer than to be daring and criminal ; and 
wide is the distance between a riot of the 
populace and a convulsion of the whole 
kingdom. You may live to make the ex- 
periment, but no honest man can wish you 
should survive it. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XII. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GKAFTON. 

My Lord, 30 May, 1769. 

If the measures in which you have 
been most successful, had been supported 
by any tolerable appearance of argument, 
I should have thought my time not ,ill em- 
ployed, in continuing to examine your con- 
duct as a minister, and stating it fairly to 
the pubHc. But when I see questions, of 
the highest national importance, carried as 
they have been, and the first principles of 
the constitution openly violated, without 
argument or decency, I confess, I give up 
the cause in despair. The meanest of your 
predecessors had abilities sufficient to give 
a colour to their measures. If they invaded 
the rights of the people, they did not dare 
to offer a direct insult to their understand- 
ing ; and, in former times, the most venal 
parhaments made it a condition, in their 
bargain with the minister, that he should 
furnish them with some plausible pretences 
for selling their country and themselves. 
You have had the merit of introducing a 
more compendious system of government 
and logic. You neither address yourself to 
the passions, nor to the understanding, but 
simply to the touch. You apply yourself 
immediately to the feelings of your friends, 
who, contrary to the forms of parliament, 

friendship, which she rejected with contempt. 
His baseness to this woman is beyond description 
or belief. 



never enter heartily into a debate until they 
have divided. 

Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of 
amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to 
the public, let me be permitted to consider 
your character and conduct merely as a 
subject of curious speculation. — There is 
something in both, which distinguishes 
you not only from all other ministers, but 
all other men. It is not that you do 
wrong by design, but that you should never 
do right by mistake. It is not that your 
indolence and your activity have been 
equally misapplied, but that the first uni- 
form principle, or, if I may so call it, the 
genius of your life, should have carried 
you through every possible change and 
contradiction of conduct, without the mo- 
mentary imputation or colour of a virtue ; 
and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency 
should never once have betrayed you into a 
wise or honourable action. This, I own, 
gives an air of singularity to your fortune, 
as well as to your disposition. Let us look 
back together to a scene, in which a mind 
like yours will find nothing to repent of. 
Let us try, my Lord, how well you have 
supported the various relations in which 
you stood, to your sovereign, your country, 
your friends, and yourself. Give us, if it 
be possible, some excuse to posterity, and 
to ourselves, for submitting to your admin- 
istration. If not the abilities of a great 
minister, if not the integrity of a patriot, 
or the fidelity of a friend, show us, at least, ■ 
the firmness of a man. — For the sake of 
your mistress, the lover shall be spared. I 
will not lead her into public, as you have 
done, nor will I insult the memory of de- 
parted beauty. Her sex, which alone 
made her amiable in your eyes, makes her 
respectable in mine. 

The character of the reputed ancestors of 
some men, has made it possible for their 
descendants to be vicious in the extreme, 
without being degenerate. Those of your 
Grace, for instance, left no distressing ex- 
amples of virtue, even to their legitimate 
posterity, and you may look back with 
pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



159 



heraldry has not left a single good quality 
upon record to insult or upbraid you.i 
You have better proofs of your descent, 
my Lord, than the register of a marriage, 
or any troublesome inheritance of reputa- 
tion. There are some hereditary strokes of 
character, by which a family may be as 
clearly distinguished as by the blackest 
features of the human face. Charles the 
First hved and died a hypocrite. Charles 
the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, 
and should have died upon the same scaf- 
fold. At the distance of a century, we see 
their different characters happily revived, 
and blended in your Grace. Sullen and 
severe without religion, profligate without 
gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, 
without being an amiable companion, and, 
for aught I know, may die as his father did, 
without the reputation of a martyr. 

You had already taken your degrees with 
credit in those schools, in which the Eng- 
lish nobility are formed to virtue, when you 
were introduced to lord Chatham's protec- 
tion. ^ From Newmarket, White's, and 
the Opposition, he gave you to the world 
with an air of popularity, which young 
men usually set out with, and seldom pre- 
serve : — grave and plausible enough to be 
thought fit for business, too young for 
treachery, and, in short, a patriot of no 
unpromising expectations. Lord Chatham 
was the earhest object of your political 
wonder and attachment.^ Yet you deserted 
him, upon the first hopes that offered of an 



^ The first duke of Grafton was a natural son 
of Charles II. During the progress of the revo- 
lution he abandoned the Stuarts for king William ; 
and his descendants had hitherto generally ranked 
themselves among the party of the Whigs. — 
Edit. 

^ To understand these passages, the reader is 
referred to a noted pamphlet, called the History 
of the Minority. 

3 The duke of Grafton was first introduced 
into the political world at an early period of life, 
under the auspices and protection of lord Chat- 
ham (then Mr Pitt) as a determined Whig. To 
the administration of lord Bute succeeded that 
of G. Grenville and the duke of Bedford, who 
soon became obnoxious to lord Bute, the guardian 
of his Majesty's non-age, and still his confi- 
dential adviser. The duke of Cumberland, uncle 
to' the king, was deputed to propose another 
administration conjointly to Mr Pitt, lord Tem- 



equal share of power with lord Rocking- 
ham. When the duke of Cumberland's 
first negotiation failed, and when the 
favourite was pushed to the last extremity, 
you saved him, by joining with an adminis- 
tration, in which lord Chatham had refused 
to engage. Still, however, he was your 
friend, and you are yet to explain to the 
world, why you consented to act without 
him, or why, after uniting with lord Rock- 
ingham, you deserted and betrayed him. 
You complained that no measures were 
taken to satisfy your patron, and that your 
friend, Mr Wilkes, who had suffered so 
much for the party, had been abandoned 
to his fate. They have since contributed, 
not a little, to your present plenitude of 
power ; yet, I think, lord Chatham has 
less reason than ever to be satisfied ; and 
as for JV[r Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the great- 
est misfortune of his life, that you should 
have so many compensations to make in the 
closet for your former friendship with him. 
Your gracious master , understands your 
character, and makes you a persecutor, be- 
cause you have been a friend. 

Lord Chatham formed his last adminis- 
tration upon principles which you certainly 
concurred in, or you could never have been 
placed at the head of the Treasury. By de- 
serting those principles, and by acting in 
direct contradiction to them, in which he 
found you were secretly supported in the 
closet, you soon forced him to leave you to 
yourself, and to withdraw his name from 



pie, and lord Lyttleton. They, however, objected 
to the undue influence of the noble favourite, 
and the proposal was declined. Lord Rocking- 
ham was now applied to, and prevailed upon to 
take the lead, and form an administration of his 
own : Mr Pitt refused to unite in it, but the duke 
of Grafton deserted him, and accepted the office 
of secretary of state. With this administration, 
however, he soon became chagrined and resigned 
his office. Lord Chatham again received him 
into communion ; and in the ministry, shortly 
after planned and carried into effect by himself, 
in which he held the privy seal, he nominated 
the duke of Grafton first lord of the Treasury. 
At the head of this new system, however, lord 
Chatham did not long continue — he withdrew 
in disgust ; but the noble duke, instead of fol- 
lowing him, took the lead upon himself, and 
commenced an administration of his own. — Edit, 



i6o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



an administration, which had been formed 
on the credit of it. You had then a pros- 
pect of friendships better suited to your 
genius, and more lilcely to fix your disposi- 
tion. Marriage is the point on which every 
ralce is stationary at last ; and truly, my 
Lord, you may well be weary of the circuit 
you have taken, for you have now fairly 
travelled through every sign in the political 
zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which you 
stung lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Vir- 
gin 1 in the house of Bloomsbury. One would 
think that you had had sufficient experi- 
ence of the frailty of nuptial engagements, 
or, at least, that such a friendship as the 
duke of Bedford's might have been secured 
to you by the auspicious marriage of your 
late duchess with^ his nephew. But ties 
of this tender nature cannot be drawn too 
close ; and it may possibly be a part of the 
duke of Bedford's ambition, after making 
her an honest woman, to work a miracle of 
the same sort upon your Grace. This 
worthy nobleman has long dealt in virtue. 
There has been a large consumption of it 
in his own family ; and, in the way of 
traffic, I dare say, he has bought and sold 
more than half the representative integrity 
of the nation. 

In a political view, this union is not im- 
prudent. The favour of princes is a perish- 
able commodity. You have now a strength 
sufficient to command the closet ; and if it 



^ His Grace had lately married Miss Wrottes- 
ley, niece of the Good Gertrude, duchess of Bed- 
ford. 

^ Miss Liddel, after her divorce from the duke, 
married lord Upper Ossory. 

3 Mr Stuart Mackenzie was brother to the earl 
of Bute. The duke of Bedford's abuse of power 
here referred to, is again noticed in Junius, 
Letter XXXVI. , and consisted in compelling 
his Majesty to displace Mr Mackenzie from the 
office of Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, shortly 
after his appointment, in favour of lord Frederick 
Campbell. In this act of coercion Mr Grenville 
bore an equal part with the noble duke. Upon 
the resignation of these ministers, Mr stuart 
Mackenzie was reinstated in his former post. — 
Edit. 

■* See notes above. — Edit. 

5 At the period here referred to, the American 
colonies had acquired such a population, and 
proportion of public wealth, as to render it ne- 
cessary to enquire, more critically than had 



be necessary to betray one friendship more, 
you may set even lord Bute at defiance. 
Mr Stuart Mackenzie may possibly remem- 
ber what use the duke of Bedford usually 
makes of his power ; 3 and our gracious 
sovereign, I doubt not, rejoices at this first 
appearance of union among his servants. 
His late Majesty, under the happy influence 
of a family connexion between his minis- 
ters, was relieved from the cares of govern- 
ment. A more active prince may perhaps 
observe, with suspicion, by what degrees 
an artful servant grows upon his master, 
from the first unlimited professions of duty 
and attachment, to the painful representa- 
tion of the necessity of the royal service, 
and soon, in regular progression, to the 
humble insolence of dictating in all the 
obsequious forms of peremptory submission. 
The interval is carefully employed in form- 
ing connexions, creating interests, collect- 
ing a party, and laying the foundation of 
double marriages; 4 until the deluded 
prince, who thought he had found a crea- 
ture prostituted to his service, and insig- 
nificant enough to be always dependent 
upon his pleasure, finds him at last too 
strong to be commanded, and too formid- 
able to be removed. 

Your Grace's pubhc conduct, as a min- 
ister, is but the counterpart of your private 
history ; — the same inconsistency, the same 
contradictions. In America we trace you, 
from the first opposition to the Stamp Act,^ 



hitherto been done, into the peculiar mode of its 
political connexion with the mother country, 
and to bind it to the latter in a more definite 
bond. It was found that most of the provincial 
departments were chartered by the crown and 
expressly exempted from legislative taxation, 
but that others were not chartered in any way, 
and of course possessed no such privilege. P'rom 
the capacity of their being now able to contribute 
to the exigencies of the state, from a desire to 
equalize the entire colonization, and from a pro- 
fessed belief that charters granted by the crown 
with such an exemption as above, displayed an 
undue stretch of the prerogative, it was deter- 
mined upon, by Mr Grenville's administration, 
to bring the matter boldly to an issue, and for 
the legislature to claim an authority over the 
colonies by passing an act which should immedi- 
ately affect them. The statute enacted for this 
purpose was the Stamp Act, which imposed a 
duty upon many of the articles most current 



Letters of jijnius. 



x6t 



on principles of convenience, to Mr Pitt's 
surrender of the right ; then forward to 
lord Rockingham's surrender of the fact ; 
then back again to lord Rockingham's de- 
claration of the right ; then forward to 
taxation with Mr Townshend ; and in the 
last instance, from the gentle Conway's un- 
determined discretion, to blood and com- 
pulsion with the duke of Bedford : ^ Yet 
if we may believe the simplicity of lord 
Nor:h's eloquence, at the opening of 
next sessions you are once more to be the 
patron of America. Is this the wisdom of 
a great minister ? or is it the ominous vibra- 
tion of a pendulum? Had you no opinion 
of your own, my Lx)rd ? or was it the grati- 
fication of betraying every party with which 
you have been united, and of deserting 
every political principle in which you had 
concurred ? 

Your enemies may turn their eyes with- 
out regret from this admirable system of 
provincial government. They will find 
gratification enough in the survey of your 
domestic and foreign policy. 

If, instead of disowning lord Shelburne, 
the British court had interposed with dig- 
nity and firmness, you know, my Lord, that 



through the colonies. Thecolonies were thrown 
into a general commotion by this measure, the 
duty could not be collected, and almost every 
province became ripe for rebellion. 

At home the members of opposition doubted, 
or affected to doubt, both the propriety and 
legality of the conduct of administration. Mr 
Pitt denied the rigJit, the marquis of Rocking- 
ham admitted the right, but denied the expedi- 
ency ; while many politicians, perplexed bj' the 
sophistry advanced by the pleaders on all sides, 
vacillated in their opinion, and sometimes united 
with one party and sometimes with another. Of 
this last description was the duke of Grafton, 
who occasionally favoured Mr Pitt's opinion, 
occasionally the marquis of Rockingham's, and 
at last sided with Mr Charles Townshend in a 
determined resolution to carry the system of 
taxation into effect at all hazards. — Edit. 

^ Mr Knox, in his ' Extra-official State 
Papers,' from which extracts have been made in 
notes to Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. XXXI. 
and LIIL, narrates the following anecdote as 
having happened to himself on the repeal of the 
Stamp Act. 

* The morning after the resolution passed in 
the House of Commons, to repeal the Stamp 
Act, and to bring in the declaratory bill, I was 
sent for to a meeting of the Opposition at Mr 



Corsica would never have been invaded. 2 
The French saw the weakness of a dis- 
tracted ministry, and were justified in treat- 
ing you with contempt. They would pro- 
bably have yielded in the first instance, 
rather than hazard a rupture with this 
country ; but, being once engaged, they 
cannot retreat without dishonour. Com- 
mon sense foresees consequences which have 
escaped your Grace's penetration. Eitherwe 
suffer the French to make an acquisition, the 
importance of which you have probably no 
conception of, or we oppose them by an 
underhand management, which only dis- 
graces us in the eyes of Europe, without 
answering any purpose of policy or pru- 
dence. From secret, indirect assistance, 
a transition to some more open decisive 
measures becomes unavoidable ; till at last 
we find ourselves principals in the war, and 
are obliged to hazard every thing for an 
object which might have originally been 
obtained without expense or danger. I am 
not versed in the politics of the north ; but 
this I believe is certain, that half the money 
you have distributed to carry the expulsion 
of Mr Wilkes, or even your secretary's 
share in the last subscription, would have 
kept the Turks at your devotion. ^ Was it 

Rigby's in Parliament Street ; when I came 
there, Mr Grenville and Mr Rigby came out to 
me, and told me, the duke of Bedford and 
several others desired to know my opinion of the 
effects which those resolutions would produce in 
America. My answer was in few words — ad- 
dresses of thanks atid measures of rcbellio7i. 
Mr Grenville smiled and shook his head, and 
Mr Rigby swore by G — d he thought so, and 
both wished me a good morning.' — Edit. 

^ Lord Shelburne, father to the present mar- 
quis of Lansdowne, while secretary of state, 
instructed our ambassador at the court of Ver- 
sailles to remonstrate, in very spirited terms, on 
the intended invasion of Corsica by the French. 
His Lordship's conduct, however, was disavowed 
by his colleagues, and he resigned his situation, 
Oct. 21, 1768. But see note to Letter III., a7ite, 
p. 136. — Edit. 

3 The Ottoman Porte was at this time in 
the hands of French influence ; the court of 
Tuilleries supplying it with French officers, and 
instructing it, through their means, in modern 
tactics, so as to enable it to support more suc- 
cessfully the war in which it was engaged with 
Russia. The growing extent of French influ- 
ence over the continent, might, in this instance 
perhaps, have easily been curtailed, by a little 



tSi 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



economy, my Lord ? or did the coy resist- 
ance you have constantly met with in the 
British senate, make you despair of cor- 
rupting the Divan? Your friends indeed 
have the first claim upon your bounty, but 
if five hundred pounds a year can be spared 
in pension to sir John Moore.i it would not 
have disgraced you to have allowed some- 
thing to the secret service of the public. 

You will say perhaps that the situation 
of affairs at home demanded and engrossed 
the whole of your attention. Here, I con- 
fess, you have been active. An" amiable, 
accomplished Prince ascends the throne 
under the happiest of all auspices, the 
acclamations and united affections of his 
subjects. The first measures of his reign, 
and even the odium of a favourite, were 
not able to shake their attachment. Yot/r 
services, my Lord, have been more success- 
ful. Since you were permitted to take the 
lead, we have seen the natural effects of a 
system of government at once both odious 
and contemptible. We have seen the laws 
sometimes scandalously relaxed, sometimes 
violently stretched beyond their tone. We 
have seen the sacred person of the sovereign 
insulted ; and in profound peace, and with 
an undisputed title, the fidelity of his sub- 
jects brought by his own servants into pub- 
lic question. 2 Without abilities, resolution, 
or interest, you have done more than lord 
Bute could accomplish, with all Scotland 
at his heels. 

Your Grace, little anxious perhaps either 
for present or future reputation, will not 
desire to be handed down in these colours 
to posterity. You have reason to flatter 
yourself that the memory of your adminis- 
tration will survive even the forms of a con- 
stitution, which our ancestors vainly hoped 
would be immortal ; and as for your per- 
sonal character, I will not, for the honour 



address,, and even transferred to the court of St 
James's.— Edit. 

^ Sir John Moore was an old Newmarket 
acquaintance of his Grace's, where he succeeded 
in completely squandering awaj' his private for- 
tune. The duke of Grafton, out of compas- 
sion, obtained for him the pension in question. — 
Edit. 

- The wise duke, about this time, exerted all 



of human nature, suppose that you can 
wish to have it remembered. The con- 
dition of the present times is desperate 
indeed ; but there is a debt due to those 
who come after us, and it is the historian's 
office to punish, though he cannot correct. 
I do not give you to posterity as a pattern 
to imitate, but as an example to deter ; 
and as your conduct comprehends every 
thing that a wise or honest minister should 
avoid, I mean to make you a negative in- 
struction to your successors for ever. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 12 June, 1769. 

The duke of Grafton's friends, 
not finding it convenient to enter into a 
contest with Junius, are now reduced to 
the last melancholy resource of defeated 
argument, the flat general charge of scur- 
rility and falsehood. As for his style, I 
shall leave it to the critics. The truth of 
his facts is of more importance to the pub- 
lic. They are of such a nature, that I think 
a bare contradiction will have no weight 
with any man, who judges for himself. 
Let us take them in the order in which they 
appear in his last letter. 

1. Have not the first rights of the people 
and the first principles of the constitution 
been openly invaded, and the very name of 
an election made ridiculous, by the arbitrary 
appointment of Mr Luttrell ? 

2. Did not the duke of Grafton fre- 
quently lead his mistress into public, and 
even place her at the head of his table, 
as if he had pulled down an ancient ^ tem- 
ple of Venus, and could bury all decency 
and shame under the ruins? — Is this the 



the influence of government to procure addresses 
to satisfy the king of the Jidelity of his subjects. 
They came in very thick from Scotland ; but, 
after the appearance of this letter, we heard no 
more of them. 

3 Miss Parsons had at this time surpassed the 
prime both of her youth and beaut3\ — Author. 

See this anecdote related more in detail in 
Miscellaneous Letters, No, XX. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



163 



man who dares to talk of Mr Wilkes's 
morals ? 

3. Is not the character of his presump- 
tive ancestors as strongly marked in him, 
as if he had descended from them in a 
direct legitimate line ? The idea of his 
death is only prophetic ; and what is pro- 
phecy but- a narrative preceding the fact ? 

4. Was not lord Chatham the first who 
raised him to the rank and post of a min- 
ister, and the first whom he abandoned ? 

5. Did he not join with lord Rocking- 
ham, and betray him? 

6. Was he not the bosom friend of Mr 
Wilkes, whom he now pursues to destruc- 
tion? 

7. Did he not take his degrees with 
credit at Newmarket, White's, and the 
Opposition ? 

8. After deserting lord Chatham's prin- 
ciples, and sacrificing his friendship, is he 
not now closely united with a set of men, 
who, though they have occasionally joined 
with all parties, have in every different 
situation, and at all times, been equally 
and constantly detested by this country? 

9. Has not sir John Jvloore a pension of 
five hundred pounds a year? — This may 
probably be an acquittance of favours upon 
the turf ; but is it possible for a minister to 
offer a grosser outrage to a nation, which 
has so very lately cleared away the beggary 
of the civil list, at the expense of more than 
half a million ? 

10. Is there any one mode of thinking or 
acting with respect to America, which the 
duke of Grafton has not successively adopt- 
ed and abandoned ? 

11. Is there not a singular mark of shame 
set upon this man, who has so little delicacy 
and feeling as to submit to the opprobrium 
of marrying a near relation of one who had 
debauched his wife ? — In the name of de- 
cency, how are these amiable cousins to 
meet at their uncle's table ? — It will be a 
scene in CEdipus, without the distress. — Is 

^ A correspondent under this signature replied 
to the preceding letter of F/n7o Jiinms, in the 
iPublic Advertiser, dated June 19 ; introducing 
his observations with the following paragraph. 

' Though PJiilo Junius is, in every sense, un- 



it wealth, or wit, or beauty, — or is the 
amorous youth in love ? 

The rest is notorious. That Corsica has 
been sacrificed to the French ; that in some 
instances the laws have been scandalously 
relaxed, and in others daringly violated ; 
and that the king's subjects have been 
called upon to assure him of their fidelity, 
in spite of the measures of his servants. 

A writer, who builds his arguments upon 
facts such as these, is not easily to be con- 
futed. He is not to be answered by general 
assertions, or general reproaches. He may 
want eloquence to amuse or persuade, 
but, speaking truth, he must always con- 
vince. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XIV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 22 June, 1769. 

The name of Old Noll is destined 
to be the ruin of the house of Stuart. 
There is an ominous fatality in it, which 
even the spurious descendants of the family 
cannot escape. Oliver Cromwell had the 
merit of conducting Charles the first to the 
block. Your correspondent Old Noll ^ 
appears to have the same design upon the 
duke of Grafton. His arguments consist 
better with the title he has assumed, than 
with the principles he professes ; for though 
he pretends to be an advocate for the duke, 
he takes care to give us the best reasons, 
why his patron should regularly follow the 
fate of his presumptive ancestor. — Through 
the whole course of the duke of Grafton's 
life, I see a strange endeavour to unite con- 
tradictions, which cannot be reconciled. He 
marries to be divorced ;— he keeps a mis- 
tress to remind him of conjugal endear- 
ments, and he chuses such friends, as it is 

worthy of an answer as a writer ; yet as he has 
compressed into small compass what he calls the 
facts advanced by Junius, I will answer them 
briefly one by one, and for ever drop a subject 
that could only acquire consequence by discuss- 
ing it in a serious manner.' — Edit. 



164 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



a virtue in him to desert. If it were possible 
for the genius of that accomplished presi- 
dent, who pronounced sentence upon 
Charles the First, to be revived in some 
modern sycophant,^ his Grace, I doubt not, 
would, by sympathy, discover him among 
the dregs of mankind, and take him for a 
guide in those paths, which naturally con- 
duct a minister to the scaffold. 

The assertion that two-thirds of the 
nation approve of the acceptance of Mr 
Luttrell (for even Old Noll is too modest 
to call it an election) can neither be main- 
tained nor confuted by argument. It is a 
point of fact, on which every English gen- 
tleman will determine for himself. As to 
lawyers, their profession is supported by 
the indiscriminate defence of right and 
wrong, and I confess I have not that opinion 
of their knowledge or integrity, to think it 
necessary that they should decide for me 
upon a plain constitutional question. With 
respect to the appointment of Mr Luttrell, 
the chancellor has never yet given any 
authentic opinion. 2 Sir Fletcher Norton 3 
is indeed an honest, a very honest man ; 
and the attorney-generaH is ex officio the 
guardian of liberty, to take care, I presume, 
that it shall never break out into a criminal 
excess. Doctor Blackstone is solicitor to 
the queen. The Doctor recollected that 
he had a place to preserve, though he for- 
got that he had a reputation to lose. We 

^ It is hardly necessary to remind the reader 
of the name of ^rrtrfi•/^rtw.— Author. 

And as little so that Old Noll was the nick- 
name of Oliver Cromwell. There is a peculiar 
severity in the comparison of the two periods and 
the two families. The duke of Grafton was 
descended from the Stuarts ; and Bradshaw was 
the name of the president of the regicide court, 
which, under the secret influence of Oliver 
Cromwell (or Old Noll), condemned Charles the 
First to death. Bradshaw was the name of the 
duke of Grafton's private secretary at the 
present moment, and Junius here insinuates 
that he was also the author of the letter signed 
Old Noll, which had a chance of proving as fatal 
to his Grace's cause, as ever the names of Brad- 
shaw or Old Noll had proved fatal to his Grace's 
ancestor. 

Bradshaw, before his present appointment, had 
been an under-clerk in the War-office, and was 
raised to the rank of private secretary, for his 
activity and despatch of business. In the month 



have now the good fortune to understand 
the Doctor's principles, as well as his writ- 
ings. For the defence of truth, of law, and 
reason, the Doctor's book may be safely 
consulted ; but whoever wishes to cheat a 
neighbour of his estate,^ or to rob a country 
of its rights, 6 need make no scruple of con- 
sulting the Doctor himself. 

The example of the English nobility 
may, for aught I know, sufficiently justify 
the duke of Grafton, when he indulges his 
genius in all the fashionable excesses of the 
age ; yet, considering his rank and station, 
I think it would do him more honour to be 
able to deny the fact, than to defend it by 
such authority. But if vice itself could be 
excused, there is yet a certain display of it, 
a certain outrage to decency, and violation 
of public decorum, which, for the benefit 
of society, should never be forgiven. It is 
not that he kept a mistress at home, but 
that he constantly attended her abroad. — 
It is not the private indulgence, but the 
public insult of which I complain. The 
name of Miss Parsons would hardly have 
been known, if the first lord of the Trea- 
sury had not led her in triumph through 
the Opera House, even in the presence of 
the queen. 7 When we see a man act in 
this manner, we may admit the shameless 
depravity of his heart, but what are we to 
think of his understanding ? 

His Grace, it seems, is now to be a regu- 

of May, 1772, he was appointed a lord of the Ad- 
miralty. 

See further, p. 225, note. — Edit. 

^ Lord Camden. — Edit. 

3 At this time chief justice in Eyre, with a 
salary of ;^30oo, and just appointed a privy 
counsellor. — Edit. 

4 Mr De Grey, afterwards lord Walsingham. — 
Edit. 

5 Doctor Blackstone had been, unfortunately 
for himself, an adviser of sir James Lowther 
against the duke of Portland, in the dispute con- 
cerning the Cumberland crown lands, upon the 
obsolete law of milium temjms. See further, 
p. 300, note. — Edit. 

6 Doctor Blackstone had also supported 
government in its rejection of Mr Wilkes, as 
member for the county of Middlesex. See 
Letter XVIII. ; as also Miscellaneous Letters, 
No. LVL— Edit. 

7 See this transaction more fully detailed in 
Miscellaneous Letters, No. XX. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



165 



lar domestic man, and as an omen of the 
future delicacy and correctness of his con- 
duct^ he marries a first cousin of the man, 
who had fixed that mark and title of 
infamy upon him, which, at the same 
moment, makes a husband unhappy and 
ridiculous. The ties of consanguinity may 
possibly preserve him from the same fate a 
second time, and as to the distress of meet- 
ing, I take for granted the venerable uncle 
of these common cousins has settled the 
etiquette in such a manner, that, if a mis- 
take should happen, it may reach no farther 
than from Madame ma femme to Madame 
ma cousine. 

The duke of Grafton has always some 
excellent reason for deserting his friends. — 
The age and incapacity of lord Chatham ;i 
— the debility of lord Rockingham ; — or 
the infamy of Mr Wilkes. There was a 
time indeed when he did not appear to be 
quite so well acquainted, or so violently 
offended with the infirmities of his friends. 
But now I confess they are not ill ex- 
changed for the youthful, vigorous virtue 
of the duke of Bedford ; — the firmness of 
general Conway ; ^ — the blunt, or if I may 
call it, the aukward integrity of Mr Rigby,^ 
and the spotless morality of lord Sandwich.'* 

If a large pension to a broken gambler^ 
be an act worthy of commendation, the 
duke of Grafton's connexions will furnish 
him with many opportunities of doing 
praiseworthy actions ; and as he himself 
bears no part of the expense, the generosity 
of distributing the public money for the 
support of virtuous famihes in distress, will 

^ Lord Chatham, it is well known, laboured 
under a premature decrepitude of body, from 
frequent and violent attacks of the gout ; but his 
mind was never affected by such paroxysms. — 
Edit. 

^ See his character in Letter XL, p. 155, 
note. — Edit. 

'^ Mr Rigby was introduced into political life 
by the duke of Bedford, to whom he had chiefly 
recommended himself by his convivial talents. 
He at length attained the lucrative post of pay- 
master of the British forces. His pretensions to 
integrity are well known even to the present 
moment to have been rather aukward. — Edit. 

4 It was lord Sandwich, who, in conjunction 
with Dr Warburton, complained to the House of 
Lords, of Wilkes's Essay on Woman, and induced 



be an unquestionable proof of his Grace's 
humanity. 

As to public affairs, Old Noll is a little 
tender of descending to particulars. He 
does not deny that Corsica has been sacri- 
ficed to France, and he confesses, that with 
regard to America, his patron's measures 
have been subject to some variation ; but 
then he promises wonders of stability and 
firmness for the future. These are mys- 
teries, of which we must not pretend to 
judge by experience ; and truly, I fear, we 
shall perish in the Desart, before we arrive 
at the Land of Promise. In the regular 
course of things, the period of the duke of 
Grafton's ministerial manhood should now 
be approaching. The imbeciUty of his 
infant state was committed to lord Chat- 
ham. Charles Townshend took some care 
of his education ^ at that ambiguous age, 
which lies between the follies of political 
childhood, and the vices of puberty. The 
empire of the passions soon succeeded. 
His earliest principles and connexions were 
of course forgotten or despised. The com- 
pany he has lately kept has been of no 
service to his morals ; and, in the conduct 
of public affairs, we see the character 
of his time of life strongly distinguished. 
An obstinate ungovernable self-sufficiency 
plainly points out to us that state of im- 
perfect maturity, at which the graceful 
levity of youth is lost, and the solidity of 
experience not yet acquired. It is possible 
the young man may in time grow wiser, 
and reform ; but, if I understand his dis- 
position, it is not of such corrigible stuff, 

their lordships' interference ; in consequence of 
which, the writer was prosecuted by the crown. 
The irony of the expression here adopted, pro- 
ceeds from the well-known fact that lord Sand- 
wich was at this very time the most profligate 
and blasphemous of all the Bedford party. — 
Edit. 5 Sir John Moore. 

6 Charles Townshend, younger brother of the 
first marquis Townshend, who had been inducted 
into political life under the banners of the first lord 
Holland, drew up the plan for taxing America, 
which the duke of Grafton was persuaded to 
adopt, and thus avowed himself to be, in this 
instance, a pupil of Charles Townshend, vvho 
was chancellor of the exchequer at the period 
here referred to, in which office he died, and was 
I succeeded by lord North in 1767.— Edit. 



i66 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



that we should hope for any amendment in 
him, before he has accomphshed the de- 
struction of this country. Like other rakes, 
he may perhaps hve to see his error, but 
not until he has ruined his estate. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XV. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 8 Jtily, 1769. 

If nature had given you an under- 
standing qualified to keep pace with the 
wishes and principles of your heart, she 
would have made you, perhaps, the most 
formidable minister that ever was em- 
ployed, under a limited monarch, to ac- 
complish the ruin of a free people. When 
neither the feelings of shame, the reproaches 
of conscience, nor the dread of punishment, 
form any bar to the designs of a minister, 
the people would have too much reason to 
lament their condition, if they did not find 
some resource in the weakness of his un- 
derstanding. We owe it to the bounty of 
Providence, that the completest depravity 
of the heart is sometimes strangely united 
with a confusion of the mind, which coun- 
teracts the most favourite principles, and 
makes the same man treacherous without 
art, and a hypocrite without deceiving. 
The measures, for instance, in which your 
Grace's activity has been chiefly exerted, 
as they were adopted without skill, should 
have been conducted with more than com- 
mon dexterity. But truly, my Lord, the 
execution has been as gross as the de- 
sign. By one decisive step, you have de- 
feated all the arts of writing. You have 
fairly confounded the intrigues of opposi- 
tion, and silenced the clamours of faction. 
A dark, ambiguous system, might require 
and furnish the materials of ingenious illus- 
tration ; and, in doubtful measures, the 
virulent exaggeration of party must be em- 
ployed, to rouse and engage the passions 
of the people. You have now brought the 
merits of your administration to an issue, 
on which every Englishman, of the narrow- 



est capacity, may determine for himself. 
It is not an alarm to the passions, but a 
calm appeal to the judgment of the people, 
upon their own most essential interests. A 
more experienced minister would not have 
hazarded a direct invasion of the first prin- 
ciples of the constitution, before he had 
made some progress in subduing the spirit 
of the people. With such a cause as yours, 
my Lord, it is not sufficient that you have 
the court at your devotion, unless you can 
find means to corrupt or intimidate the 
jury. The collective body of the people 
form that jury, and from their decision 
there is but one appeal. 

Whether you have talents to support 
you, -at a crisis of such difficulty and dan- 
ger, should long since have been considered. 
Judging truly of your disposition, you have 
perhaps mistaken the extent of your capa- 
city. Good faith and folly have so long 
been received for synonymous terms, that 
the reverse of the proposition has grown 
into credit, and every villain fancies himself 
a man of abilities. It is the apprehension 
of your friends, my Lord, that you have 
drawn some hasty conclusion of this sort, 
and that a partial reliance upon your moral 
character has betrayed you beyond the 
depth of your understanding. You have 
now carried things too far to retreat. You 
have plainly declared to the people what 
they are to expect from the continuance of 
your administration. It is time for your 
Grace to consider what you also may ex- 
pect in return from their spirit and their 
resentment. 

Since the accession of our most gracious 
sovereign to the throne, we have seen a 
system of government, which may well be 
called a reign of experiments. Parties of 
all denominations have been employed and 
dismissed. The advice of the ablest men 
in this country has been repeatedly called 
for and rejected ; and when the Royal dis- 
pleasure has been signified to a minister, 
the marks of it have usually been propor- 
tioned to his abilities and integrity. The 
spirit of the favourite had some apparent 
influence upon every administration ; and 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



167 



every set of ministers preserved an appear- 
ance of duration, as long as they submitted 
to that influence. But there were certain 
services to be performed for the Favourite's 
security, or to gratify his resentments, 
which your predecessors in office had the 
wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. 
The moment this refractory spirit was dis- 
covered, their disgrace was determined. 
Ix>rd Chatham, Mv^ Grenville, and lord 
Rockingham have successively had the 
honour to be dismissed, for preferring their 
duty as servants of the pubhc, to those 
compliances which were expected from 
their station. A submissive administration 
was at last gradually collected from the 
' deserters of all parties, interests, and con- 
nexions : and nothing remained but to find 
a leader for these gallant well-disciplined 
troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for thou 
art the man. Lord Bute found no resource 
of dependence or security in the proud im- 
posing superiority of lord Chatham's abili- 
ties, the shrewd inflexible judgment of Mr 
Grenville, 1 nor in the mild but determined 
integrity of lord Rockingham. His views 
and situation required a creature void of all 
these properties ; and he was forced to go 
through every division, resolution, composi- 
tion, and refinement of political chemistry, 
before he happily arrived at the caput vior- 
tuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and 
insipid in your retired state, but brought 
into action, you become vitriol again. 
Such are the extremes of alternate indo- 
lence or fury, which have governed your 
whole administration. Your circumstances 
with regard to the people soon becoming 
desperate, like other honest servants, you 
determined to involve the best of masters 
in the same difficulties with yourself. We 
owe it to your Grace's well-directed labours, 



^ Mr G. Grenville, younger brother of lord 
Temple, and brother-in-law to lord Chatham, 
was a political eleve of his maternal uncle lord 
Cobham. He first attached himself to the Tory 
party, in consequence of marrjnng the daughter 
of sir W. Wyndham, the confidential friend of 
Bolingbroke, and father of lord Egremont ; and 
was made one of the secretaries of state, when 
lord Bute in 1762 was appointed first lord of the 
Treasury-. He planned the American Stamp 



that your sovereign has been persuaded to 
doubt of the affections of his subjects, and 
the people to suspect the virtues of their 
sovereign, at a time when both were un- 
questionable. You have degraded the 
royal dignity into a base, dishonourable 
competition with Mr Wilkes, nor had you 
abihties to carry even this last contemptible 
triumph over a private man, without tl\e 
grossest violation of the fundamental laws 
of the constitution and rights -of the people. 
But these are rights, my lord, which yoti 
can no more annihilate, than you can the 
soil to which they are annexed. The ques- 
tion no longer turns upon points of national 
honour and security abroad, or on the de- 
grees of expedience and propriety of mea- 
sures at home. It was not inconsistent 
that you should abandon the cause of 
liberty in another country, 2 which you had 
persecuted in your own ; and in the com- 
mon arts of domestic corruption, we miss 
no part of sir Robert U'alpole's system 3 
except his abilities. In this humble imita- 
tive line, you might long have proceeded, 
safe and contemptible. You might, pro- 
bably, never have risen to the dignity of 
being hated, and even have been despised 
with moderation. But it seems you meant 
to be distinguished, and, to a mind like 
yours, there was no other road to fame but 
by the destruction of a noble fabric, which 
you thought had been too long the admira- 
tion of mankind. The use you have made 
of the military force introduced an alarm- 
ing change in the mode of executing the 
laws. The arbitrary appointment of Mr 
Luttrell invades the foimdation of the laws 
themselves, as it manifestly transfers the 
right of legislation from those whom the 
people have chosen, to those whom they 
have rejected. With a succession of such 

Act, and commenced the opposition to Wilkes. 
He afterwards, however, became disgusted with 
lord Bute, and, upon his resignation, firmly 
attached himself to the party of lord Rocking- 
ham ; the most pure and unmixt Whig leader of 
his day, with whom also lord Temple and the 
earl of Chatham had now united themselves. 
See further, pages 000 and 196. — Edit. 

- Corsica. — Edit. 

^ See note to Letter XVI.. p. 170 — Edit, 



i68 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



appointments, we may soon see a House of 
Commons collected, in the choice of which 
the other towns and counties of England 
will have as little share as the devoted 
county of Middlesex. 

Yet, I trust, your Grace will find that the 
people of this country are neither to be in- 
timidated by violent measures, nor deceived 
by refinements. When they see Mr Luttrell 
seated in the House of Commons by mere 
dint of power, and in direct opposition to 
the choice of a whole county, they will 
not listen to those subtleties, by which 
every arbitrary exertion of authority is ex- 
plained into the law and privilege of parlia- 
ment. It requires no persuasion of argu- 
ment, but simply the evidence of the senses, 
to convince them, that to transfer the right 
of election from the collective to the repre- 
sentative body of the people, contradicts 
all those ideas of a House of Commons, 
which they have received from their fore- 
fathers, and which they have already, 
though vainly perhaps, delivered to their 
children. The principles, on which this 
violent measure has been defended, have 
added scorn to injury, and forced us to feel, 
that we are not only oppressed, but in, 
suited. 

With what force, my Lord, with what 
protection are you prepared to meet the 
united detestation of the people of England? 
The city of London has given a generous 
example to the kingdom, in what manner a 
king of this country ought to be addressed ; ^ 
and I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your 
courage to stand between your sovereign 
and the addresses of his subjects. The in- 
juries you have done this country are such 
as demand not only redress, but vengeance. 
In vain shall you look for protection to that 
venal vote, which you have already paid 
for — another niiust be purchased ; and to 
save a minister, the House of Commons 
must declare themselves not only independ- 
ent of their constituents, but the determined 



^ See this subject farther noticed in Letter 
XXXVII. 

^ I'he duke of Grafton was chancellor, and 
lord Sandwich high steward, of the university of 
CamBridge. — Edit. 



enemies of the constitution. Consider, my 
Lord, whether this be an extremity to 
which their fears will permit them to ad- 
vance ; or, if their protection should fail 
you, how far you are authorized to rely 
upon the sincerity of those smiles, which a 
pious court lavishes without reluctance 
upon a Ubertine by profession. It is not, 
indeed, the least of the thousand contra- 
dictions which attend you, that a man, 
marked to the world by the grossest viola- 
tion of all ceremony and decorum, should 
be the first servant of a court, in which 
prayers are morality, and kneeUng is re- 
ligion. Trust not too far to appearances, 
by which your predecessors have been de- 
ceived, though they have not been injured. 
Even the best of princes may at last dis- 
cover, that this is a contention, in which 
everything may be lost, but nothing can be 
gained ; and as you became minister by 
accident, were adopted without choice, 
trusted without confidence, and continued 
without favour, be assured that, whenever 
an occasion presses, you will be discarded 
without even the forms of regret. You 
will then have reason to be thankful, if you 
are permitted to retire to that seat of learn- 
ing, which in contemplation of the system 
of your life, the comparative purity of your 
manners with those of their high steward, 
and a thousand other recommending cir- 
cumstances, has chosen you to encourage 
the growing virtue of their youth, and to 
preside over their education. 2 Whenever 
the spirit of distributing prebends and 
bishoprics shall have departed from you, 
you will find that learned seminary per- 
fectly recovered from the delirium of an 
installation, and, what in truth it ought to 
be, once more a peaceful scene of slumber 
and thoughtless meditation. The venera- 
ble tutors of the university will no longer • 
distress your modesty, by proposing you 
for a pattern to their pupils. The learned 
dulness of declamation will be silent ; ^ and 

3 Dr HinchlifFe, afterwards bishop of Peter- 
borough, in his official situation as Vice-Chan- 
cellor of Cambridge, made an oration in praise 
of the duke of Grafton, on introducing him to 
the Senate-house, on the morning of his installa- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



l6q 



even the venal muse,^ though happiest in 
fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for 
the benefit of the succeeding age, I could 
wish that your retreat might be deferred, 
until your morals shall happily be ripened 
to that maturity of corruption, at which the 
worst examples cease to be contagious. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER XVI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 July, 1769. 

A GREAT deal of useless argument 
might have been saved, in the political con- 
j test which has arisen upon the expulsion of 
Mr Wilkes, and the subsequent appoint- 
ment of Mr Luttrell, if the question had 
been once stated with precision, to the satis- 
faction of each party, and clearly under- 
stood by them both. But in this, as in 
almost every other dispute, it usually hap- 
pens that much time is lost in referring to a 
multitude of cases and precedents, which 
prove nothing to the purpose, or in main- 
taining propositions, which are either not 
disputed, or, whether they be admitted or 
denied, are entirely indifferent as to the 
matter in debate ; until at last the mind, 
perplexed and confounded with the endless 
subtleties of controversy, loses sight of the 
main question, and never arrives at truth. 
Both parties in the dispute are apt enough 
to practise these dishonest artifices. The 
man, who is conscious of the weakness of 
his cause, is interested in concealing it: 
and, on the other side, it is not uncommon 
to see a good cause mangled by advocates, 
who do not know the real strength of it. 

I should be glad to know, for instance, to 
what purpose, in the present case, so many 
precedents have been produced to prove, 
that the House of Commons have a right to 

tion to the chancellorship of that university.— 
Edit. 

^ He alludes to Gray's celebrated Ode to 
Music, composed and performed on the installa- 
tion of his Grace as chancellor of the university ; 
begimiing, 



expel one of their own members ; that it 
belongs to them to judge of the validity of 
elections ; or that the law of parliament is 
part of the law of the land ? 2 After all these 
propositions are admitted, Mr Luttrell's 
right to his seat will continue to be just as 
disputable as it was before. Not one of 
them is at present in agitation. Let it be 
admitted that the House of Commons were 
authorized to expel Mr Wilkes ; that they 
are the proper court to judge of elections, 
and that the law of parhament is binding 
upon the people ; still it remains to be en- 
quired whether the House, by their resolu- 
tion in favour of Mr Luttrell, have, or have 
not, truly declared that law. To facilitate 
this enquiry, I would have the question 
cleared of all foreign or indifferent matter. 
The following state of it will probably be 
thought a fair one by both parties ; and 
then, I imagine, there is no gentleman in 
this country, who will not be capable of 
forming a judicious and true opinion upon 
it. I take the question to be strictly this : 
' Whether or no it be the known, establish- 
ed law of parhament, that the expulsion of 
a member of the House of Commons of 
itself creates in him such an incapacity to 
be re-elected, that, at a subsequent election, 
any votes given to him are null and void, 
and that any other candidate, who, except 
the person expelled, has the greatest num- 
ber of votes, ought to be the sitting mem- 
ber.' 

To prove that the affirmative is the law 
of parliament, I apprehend it is not suffi- 
cient for the present House of Commons to 
declare it to be so. We may shut our eyes 
indeed to the dangerous consequences of 
suffering one branch of the legislature to 
declare new laws, without argument or 
example, and it may perhaps be prudent 
enough to submit to authority ; but a mere 
assertion will never convince, much less 
will it be thought reasonable to "prove the 



Hence ! avaunt ! 'tis holy ground — 

Comus and his midnight crew, &c. — Edit. 

^ The reader will observe that these admis- 
sions are made, not as of truths unquestionable, 
but for the sake of argument, and in order to 
bring the real question to issue. 



lyo 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



right by the fact itself. The ministry have 
not yet pretended to such a tyranny over 
our minds. To support the affirmative 
fairly, it will either be necessary to produce 
some statute, in which that positive provi- 
sion shall have been made, that specific dis- 
abihty clearly created, and the consequences 
of it declared ; or, if there be no such 
statute, the custom of parliament must then 
be referred to, and some case or cases, ^ 
strictly in point, must be produced, with 
the decision of the court upon them ; for I 
readily admit that the custom of parhament, 
once clearly proved, is equally binding with 
the common and statute law. 

The consideration of what may be reason- 
able or unreasonable makes no part of this 
question. We are enquiring what the law 
is, not what it ought to be. Reason may 
be applied to show the impropriety or expe- 
dience of a law, but we must have either 
statute or precedent to prove the existence 
of it. At the same time I do not mean to 
admit that the late resolution of the House 
of Commons is defensible on general prin- 
ciples of reason, any more than in law. 
This is not the hinge on which the debate 
turns. 

Supposing, therefore, that I have laid 
down an accurate state of the question, I 
will venture to affirm, ist, That there is no 



^ Precedents, in opposition to principles, have 
little weight with Junius; but he thought it 
necessary to meet the ministry upon their own 
ground. 

^ Case of the Middlesex Election considered, 
page 38. 

3 This fact occurred while Mr Walpole was in 
an inferior capacity to that in which he after- 
wards appeared so conspicuously as prime minis- 
ter of George I. and George II. At the period 
in question, the To.nes having obtained a majority 
in parliament, expelled him for the crime of hav- 
ing accepted profits upon a military contract, 
while secretary at war, and at the same time 
possessed influence enough to have him com- 
mitted to the Tower. He was member for Lynn 
Regis, the burgesses of which borough were 
warmly attached to him. It was for this borough 
he had been returned at an early period of his 
life ; by which he was enabled, while a young 
politician, to head the Whig party against St 
John, afterwards lord Bolingbroke, who took a 
leading part in the Tory administration of 
Harlcy. 



statute existing, by which that specific dis- 
abihty, which we speak of, is created. If 
there be, let it be produced. The argument 
will then be at an end. 

2ndly, That there is no precedent in all 
the proceedings of the House of Commons 
which comes entirely home to the present 
case, viz. ' where an expelled member has 
been returned again, and another candi- 
date, with an inferior number of votes, has 
been declared the sitting member.' If there 
be such a precedent, let it be given to us 
plainly, and I am sure it will have more 
weight than all the cunning arguments 
which have been drawn from inferences 
and probabilities. 

The ministry, in that laborious pamphlet, 
which, I presume, contains the whole 
strength of the party, have declared, 2 ' That 
Mr Walpole's ^ was the first and only in- 
stance, in which the electors of any county 
or borough had returned a person expelled 
to serve in the same parliament.' It is not 
possible to conceive a case more exactly in 
point. Mr Walpole was expelled, and 
having a majority of votes at the next 
election, was returned again. The friends 
of Mr Taylor, a candidate set up by the 
ministry, petitioned the House that he might 
be the sitting member. ^ Thus far the cir- 



From the disgrace into which he was hereby 
for a long time plunged, he was at length re- 
lieved by the failure of the minister's favourite 
expedient of the South Sea incorporation, and 
the extreme unpopularity in which he was con- 
sequently involved. Walpole now triumphed 
upon the ruin of his rival ; became prime minis- 
ter, retained the post through the whole of the 
existing and part of the next reign, and for his 
services was created earl of Orford. — Edit. 

4 The following are the particulars of this case, 
as extracted from the journals of the House of 
Commons : 

' On the 23 of February 171 1, a petition of the 
freemen and free-burghers of the borough of 
King's Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, was 
presented to the House, and read ; setting forth, 
that Monday the eleventh of February last, be- 
ing appointed for chusing a member to serve in 
parliament for this borough, in the room of 
Robert Walpole, Esq., expelled this House, 
Samuel Taylor, Esq. %vas elected their burgess ; 
but John Bagg, present mayor of the said 
borough, refused to reijirn the said Sam^tel 
Taylor, though required so to do ; and returned 
the said Robert Walpole, though expelled this 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



171 



cumstances tally exactly, except that our 
House of Commons saved Mr Luttrell the 
trouble of petitioning. The point of law 
however was the same. It came regularly 
before the House, and it was their business 
to determine upon it. They did determine 
it, for they declared Mr Taylor not duly 
elected. If it be said that they meant this 
resolution as matter of favour and indulg- 
ence to the borough, which had retorted 
Mr Walpole upon them, in order that the 
burgesses, knowing what the law was, 
might correct their error, I answer, 

I. That it is a strange way of arguing, 
to oppose a supposition, which no man can 
prove, to a fact which proves itself. 

II. That if this were the intention of the 
House of Commons, it must have defeated 
itself. The burgesses of Lynn could never 
have known their error, much less could 
they have corrected it, by any instruction 
they received from the proceedings of the 
House of Commons. They might perhaps 
have foreseen, that, if they returned Mr 
Walpole again, he would again be rejected ; 
but they never could infer, from a resolution 
by which the candidate with the fewest 
votes was declared not duly elected, that, at 
a future election, and in similar circum- 
stances, the House of Commons would 
reverse their resolution, and receive the 
same candidate as duly elected, whom they 
had before rejected. 

This indeed would have been a most ex- 
traordinary way of declaring the law of 
parUament, and what I presume no man, 
whose understanding is not at cross-pur- 



House, and then a prisoner in the Tower, and 
praying the consideration of the House. 

' March 6th. The order of the day being 
read of taking into consideration the merits of 
the petition of the freemen and free-burghers of 
the borough of King's Lynn in the county of 
Norfolk, and a motion being made that council 
be called in, upon a division, it was resolved in 
the negative. Tellers for the yeas sir Charles 
Turner, Mr Pulteney, 127. Tellers for the noes. 
Sir Simeon Stuart, Mr Foster, 212. — A motion 
being made, and the question put, that Robert 
Walpole, Esq., having been this session of parlia- 
ment committed a prisoner to the Tower of Lon- 
don, and expelled this House for an high breach 
of trust in the e.xecution of his office, and notori- 
ous corruption, when secretary at war, was, and 



poses with itself, could possibly under- 
stand. , 

If, in a case of this importance, I thought 
myself at liberty to argue from suppositions 
rather than from facts, I think the pro- 
bability, in this instance, is directly the 
reverse of what the ministry affirm ; and 
that it is much more hkely that the House 
of Commons at that time would rather have 
strained a point in favour of ^vlr Taylor, 
than that they w^ould have violated the law 
of parliament, and robbed Mr Taylor of a 
right legally vested in him, to gratify a 
refractory borough, which, in defiance of 
them, had returned a person branded with 
the strongest mark of the displeasure of the 
House. 

But really, Sir, this way of talking, for I 
cannot call it argument, is a mockery of 
the common understanding of the nation, 
too gross to be endured. Our dearest 
interests are at stake. An attempt has 
been made, not merely to rob a single 
county of its rights, but, by inevitable con- 
sequence, to alter the constitution of the 
House of Commons. This fatal attempt 
has succeeded, and stands as a precedent, 
recorded for ever.^ If the ministry are 
unable to defend their cause by fair argu- 
m.ent, founded on facts, let them spare us 
at least the mortification of being amused 
and deluded like children. I believe there 
is yet a spirit of resistance in this country, 
which will not submit to be oppressed ; but 
I am sure there is a fund of good sense in 
this country, which cannot be deceived. 
JUNIUS. 



is, incapable of being elected a member to serve 
in this present parliament, it was resolved, upon 
a division, in the affirmative. Then a motion 
being made, and the question put, that Samuel 
Taylor, Esq. is A\x\y elected a burgess to serve 
in the present parliament for the borough of 
King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk, it passed 
in the negative. Resolved, that the late election 
of a burgess to serve in the present parliament 
for the said borough of King's Lynn, in the 
county of Norfolk, is a void election.' — Edit. 

' See the Editor's note to Letter XLVL, in 
which the reader will iind a particular account 
of the steps taken by Mr Wilkes to procure the 
erasure of these pro^^eedings from the journals 
of the House of Commons. — Edit. 



172 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XVn. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER, 

Sir, I August, 1769. 

It will not be necessary for j UNius 



'■ It seems but fair that the reader should be 
put into possession of both the papers which it is 
the object of the present letter to oppose ; but 
more especially the latter, which was written by 
Dr Blackstone, and a passage from another part 
of which Junius, ^ost, p. 187, contrasts with one 
from the Commentaries. The Editor has there- 
fore extracted them from the journal referred to. 
to the printer of the public advertiser. 

Sir, 

I HAVE perused, with all due attention, 
the letter of Junius, inserted in your paper of 
the 19th inst. I perfectly agree with him, that 
a great deal of useless argument might have been 
saved in the political contest which has arisen 
upon the expulsion of Mr Wilkes, and the subse- 
quent appointment of Mr Luttrell, if the ques- 
tion had been once stated with precision to the 
satisfaction of each party. Yet after all the in- 
genious pains Junius has taken, I much doubt 
whether the question, as he has thought fit to 
state it, will at all satisfy more than one party. 
The question, as he has given it, is, ' Whether or 
no it be the known established law of parliament, 
that the expulsion of a member of the House of 
Commons, of itself creates in him such an inca- 
pacity of being re-elected, that at a subsequent 
election, any votes given to him are null and 
void, and that any other candidate who, except 
the person expelled, has the greatest number of 
votes, ought to be the sitting member ?' Junius 
having thus formed his question, entertains the 
reader with a iev/ spirited flourishes, not per- 
haps directly ad re7>t ; and then asserts, what 
probably the party he opposes will not deny, 
viz. ' That to support the affirmative fairly, it 
will either be necessary to produce some statute, 
in which that positive provision shall have been 
made, that specific disability clearly created, and 
the consequences of it declared ; or if there be 
no such statute, the custom of parliament must 
then be referred to, and some case, or cases, 
strictly in point, mvist be produced, with the de- 
cision of the couit upon them.' Suppose, for 
argument's sake, that no such statute, no such 
custom of parliament, no such case in point can 
be produced, does it therefore follow that the 
determination of the House of Commons, in re- 
gard to Mr Wilkes and Mr Luttrell, was wrong? 
Have not the members of the present House as 
good a right to establish a precedent, as the 
members of any antecedent House ever had ? 
Junius admits a right in the House to expel. 
But was there not a time prior to all expulsion ? 
and was the first expulsion therefore wrong ? Was 
there not a time prior to every other precedent 
in the journals of the House ? But was every such, 



to take the trouble of answering your cor- 
respondent G. A., or the quotation from a 
speech without-doors, published in your 
paper of the 28th of last month. 1 The 

or any such, precedent therefore wrong? Are 
things wrong merely because they were never 
done before ? Or do wrong things become right 
by mere dint of repetition? Should Junius 
think fit to answer these questions, I may be in- 
duced perhaps to enlarge upon the subject. 
I am, Sir, 

Your humble servant, 
July 26. G. A. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

Sir, July 28, 1769. 

In answer to the arguments and ob- 
servations of your correspondent Junius (relating 
to the vote of the 9th of May, in favour of colonel 
Luttrell) I send you the following extract from 
a pamphlet just published, which please to insert 
as soon as you can, and thereby oblige. 

An Old Correspondent. 

A speech without-doors upon the subject of a vote 
given on the gth day of May, 1769. 

* Your question I will answer, having 
first premised, that if you are satisfied we did 
right in setting aside Mr Wilkes's election, I 
cannot believe it will be a very difficult task to 
convince you that the admitting of Mr Luttrell 
was the, unavoidable consequence. " No (say 
you) ; for surely you might have declared it a 
void election. Why go greater lengths than in 
former times, even the most heated and violent, 
it was ever thought proper to go ? Or upon what 
ground, either of reason or authority, can you 
justify the vote you gave, that Mr Luttrell, who, 
certainly had not the majority, was duly elected ? " 
The question you have a right to put to me, and 
I mean to give it a direct answer. 

'Now the principle upon which I voted was 
this, that in all cases of election by a majority of 
votes, wherever the candidate for whom the 
most votes are given, appears to have been, at 
the time of the election, under a known legal in- 
capacity, the person who had the next greatest 
number of votes ought to be considered as the 
person duly elected. And this, as a general 
principle, I take to be altogether uncontroverti- 
ble. We may differ in our ways of expressmg 
the principle, or of explaining the grounds of it : 
some chusing to state it, that the electors voting 
for such incapable person, do for that time forfeit 
their right of voting ; others, that their votes are 
thrown away ; and others, that votes for a per- 
son not legally capable, are not legal votes. But 
in whatever way we assign the ground of the 
rule, the result and conclusion is still the same, 
that, in every such case, the election of the capa- 
ble person by the inferior number of votes, is a 
good and valid election. 

' Nor is this rule, founded as it is in sound 
sense and public necessity, to be put out of 
countenance by a little ingenious sophistry, play- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



173 



speech appeared before JUNius's letter, and 
as the author seems to consider the great 
proposition, on which all his argument 



ing upon the ambiguity of certain undefined 
terms, taunting us with the reproach of elections 
by a minority, of inverting the rules of arithme- 
tic, and the Uke. Not even the sacredness of 
the rights of the electors can stand against its 
authority ; for sacred as those rights ought ever 
to be held, the exercise of them, as well as of all 
the other rights of individuals, must ever be con- 
fined within such bounds, and governed by such 
rules, as are consistent with the attainment of the 
great public ends for which they were established. 
But could any thing be more preposterous than 
if, while you are securing to individuals the right 
thej"^ have to take part in determining who shall 
be appointed to discharge the several public 
offices and trusts, no care should be taken that 
the public, in all events, maybe secure of having 
any persons appointed at all ? Yet to this incon- 
venience the public nmst be perpetually exposed, 
if the rule were to be strictly and invariably fol- 
lowed, that nothing but a majority of the electors 
could ever make a good election. That a ma- 
jority of the whole number entitled to have voice 
in the election, is not necessary, will be readily 
admitted ; for at that rate, the absence of one 
half of the electors might defeat the possibility 
of any election at all. Neither is it necessary, 
in order to a candidate's being duly elected, that 
he should have the votes of more than one half 
of the electors present ; since, if it were, diversity 
of inclinations among the electors, and the put- 
ting up of three candidates, might as completely 
frustrate all possibility of supplying the vacancy, 
as the absence of one half of the electors would 
in the former case. Accordingly, therefore, we 
constantly see, that wherever there are more 
than two candidates for one vacancy, the election 
is determined, not so properly by a majority, as 
by a plurality of voices ; and the candidate who 
has more voices than any one of his competitors, 
although fewer than one half of the electors 
present, is always determined to be well and 
duly elected ; there being, indeed, no other 
method allowed by the constitution, of voting 
against one candidate, but by voting for another ; 
nor any liberty of declaring whom I would pre- 
fer in the second place, in case my first vote 
should prove ineffectual ; either of which allow- 
ances might prevent any election being made. 

' Thus far then we are guarded against the pub- 
lic service being disappointed, cither by the remiss- 
ness of the electors in absenting themselves from 
the election, or by such a diversity of opinions 
among the electors present, as, though innocent 
in itself, would yet be of fatal consequence to the 
public, should it be suffered to operate so far as 
to prevent any effectual election from taking 
place. But much in vain have these rules been 
established, if it is still to be in the power of the 
same number of electors, by a little management, 
to effect the same purpose, and put an effectual 
bar to all possibility of a valid election. Hadthey, j 



depends, viz. thai Mr Wilkes was under 
that knoivti. legal incapacity, of which 
Junius speaks, as a point granted, his 

by staying away, declared that they would take 
no part in supplying the vacancy, their fellow- 
electors, who chose to exercise their franchise, 
and upon whom, in that case, the complete right 
would have devolved, might have exercised 
their right accordingly, and the public service 
would have been provided for. But shall they 
be allowed to come, and by declaring that they 
will vote against one candidate, but for no other, 
or by voting for a person whom they know to be 
incapable of holding the office, as truly, to all 
intents and purposes, deprive their fellows of 
their right, and the public of its due, as if, In- 
stead of coming, they had only sent a prohibition 
of proceeding to any election till it should be 
their good pleasure to suffer one ? Against such 
a mockery of the public authority common sense 
reclaims ; and has, therefore, provided against 
this abuse, by pointing out this farther qualifica- 
tion of the rule by which elections are to be de- 
cided. That, as the electors who give no vote at 
all, have no power of excluding any candidate for 
whom other electors do v ote, so those who give 
their votes for a person whom they know to be 
by law incapable, are to be considered exactly 
on the same footing as if they gave no votes at 
all ? Not to give any vote, to declare I vote for 
nobody, or to vote for the Great Mogul, must 
undoubtedly have the same effect. 

' Thus then it appeared to me, that the gen- 
eral rule, that in case of a known legal incapa- 
city in the person having the majority of voices, 
the capable person next upon the poll, although 
chosen by a minority, is duly elected, is conso- 
nant to reason, is the dictate of common sense. 

' That it had also the sanction of authority, I 
was as clearly convinced. The practice of the 
courts of law, in such cases, seems not to be dis- 
puted ; they have, by repeated decisions, estab- 
lished the principle. 

' Upon these grounds, therefore, both of reason 
and authority, I not only thought myself fully 
justified in giving my vote, that Air Luttrell was 
duly elected, but in truth I could not think my- 
self at liberty to vote otherwise, being convinced, 
that as, on the one hand, by so voting I should 
do no wrong to the 1143 freeholders of Middle- 
sex, who, for the chance of being able to over- 
bear the authority of the House of Commons, 
which had adjudged Mr Wilkes to be incapable, 
had chosen to forego their right of taking part in 
the nomination of a capable person in his room ; 
so, by a contrary decision, I should have done a 
most manifest injustice to Mr Luttrell, and to 
the 296 freeholders who voted for him ; and who 
in failure of a nomination by an equal number of 
freeholders of any other capable candidate, had, 
upon every principle of reason, and every rule of 
law, as well as according to the uniform usage 
of parliament, conferred upon him a clear title to 
sit as one of the representatives for the county 
of Middlesex.'— Edit. 



174 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



speech is, in no shape, an answer to 
Junius, for this is the very question in 
debate. 

As to G. A., I observe first, that if he did 
not admit of JUNius's state of the question, 
he should have shown the fallacy of it, or 
given us a more exact one ; — secondly, that 
considering the many hours and days, 
which the ministry and their advocates have 
wasted, in public debate, in compiHug large 
quartos, and collecting innumerable prece- 
dents, expressly to prove that the late pro- 
ceedings of the House of Commons are 
warranted by the law, custom, and practice 
of parliament, it is rather an extraordinary 
supposition, to be made by one of their own 
party, even for the sake of argument, that 
no such statute, no such custom of parlia- 
ment, no such case in pohit, can be pro- 
duced, G. A. may however make the sup- 
position with safety. It contains nothing, 
but literally the fact, except that there is a 
case exactly in point, with a decision of the 
House, diametrically opposite to that which 
the present House of Commons came to in 
favour of Mr Luttrell. 

The ministry now begin to be ashamed 
of the weakness of their cause, and, as it 
usually happens with falsehood, are driven 
to the necessity of shifting their ground, 
and changing their whole defence. At first 
we were told that nothing could be clearer 
than that the proceedings of the House of 
Commons were justified by the known law 
and uniform custom of parhament. But 
now it seems, if there be no law, the House 
of Commons have a right to make one, and 
if there be no precedent, they have a right 
to create the first ;— for this, I presume, is 
the amount of the questions proposed to 
Junius. If your correspondent had been 
at all versed in the law of parliament, or 
generally in the laws of this country, he 
would have seen that this defence is as weak 
and false as the former. 

The privileges of either House of Parlia- 
ment, it is true, are indefinite, that is, they 
have not been described or laid down in 
any one code or declaration whatsoever ; 
but whenever a question of privilege has 



arisen, it has invariably been disputed or 
maintained upon the footing of precedents 
alone. 1 In the course of the proceedmgs 
upon the Aylesbury election, the House of 
Lords resolved, ' That neither House of 
Parliament had any power, by any vote or 
declaration, to create to themselves any 
new privilege that was not warranted by 
the known laws and customs of parlia- 
ment.' And to this rule the House of 
Commons, though otherwise they had acted 
in a very arbitrary manner, gave their 
assent, for they affirmed that they had 
guided themselves by it, in asserting their 
privileges. — Now, Sir, if this be true with 
respect to matters of privilege, in which the 
House of Commons, individually and as a 
body, are principally concerned, how much 
more strongly will it hold against any pre- 
tended power in that House, to create or 
declare a new law, by which not only the 
rights of the House over their own member, 
and those of the member himself, are con- 
cluded, but also those of a third and separ- 
ate party, I m.ean the freeholders of the king- 
dom. To do justice to the ministry, they 
have not yet pretended that any one or any 
two of the three estates have power to make 
a new law, without the concurrence of the 
third. They know that a man who main- 
tains such a doctrine, is liable, by statute, 
to the heaviest penalties. They do not 
acknowledge that the House of Comn)ons 
have assumed a new privilege, or declared 
a new law.— On the contrary, they afiirm 
that their proceedings have been strictly 
conformable to and founded upon the 
ancient law and custom of parliament. 
Thus therefore the question returns to the 
point, at which Junius had fixed it, viz. 
Whether or no this be the law of parlia- 
ment. If it be not, the House of Commons 
had no legal authority to establish the pre- 
cedent ; and the precedent itself is a mere 
fact, without any proof of right whatsoever. 
Your correspondent concludes with a 

^ This is still meeting the ministry upon their 
own ground : for, in truth, no precedents will 
support either natural injustice, or violation of 
positive right. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



175 



question of the simplest nature : Must a 
thing be wrong, because it has tiever been 
done before ? No. But admitting it were 
proper to be done, that alone does not 
convey an authority to do it. As to the 
present case, I hope I shall never see the 
time, when not only a single person, but a 
whole county, and in elfect the entire col- 
lective body of the people, may again be 
robbed of their birthright by a vote of the 
House of Commons. But if, for reasons 
which I am unable to comprehend, it be 
necessary to tnist that House with a power 
so exorbitant and so unconstitutional, at 
least let it be given to them by an act of the 
legislature. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XVIII. 

TO DR WILLIAM BLAtKSTONE, SOLICITOR- 
GENERAL TO HER MAJESTY, 

Sir, 29 July, 1769. 

I SHALL make you no apology for 
considering a certain pamphlet, in which 
your late conduct is defended, as written 
by yourself. 1 The personal interest, the 
personal resentments, and above all, that 
wounded spirit, unaccustomed to reproach, 
and I hope not frequently conscious of de- 
serving it, are signals which betray the 
author to us as plainly as if your name 
were in the title-page. You appeal to the 
public in defence of your reputation. We 



^ This was at last admitted by the friends of 
the solicitor -general. The pamphlet was en- 
titled, ' An answer to the question stated ; ' and 
was a reply to a pamphlet from sir William 
Meredith, one of the most active members of 
parliament of the Whig party, entitled, 'The 
question stated,' in reference to the adjudication 
of Wilkes's incapacity to sit in parliament after 
his last election ; in the course of which also, the 
inconsistency of opinion between that delivered 
by the solicitor-general in his Commentaries, 
and that on the point in question, was severely 
animadverted upon. 

The press was overwhelmed with tracts on 
this dispute from both sides. Of these, the chief, 
independently of sir William Meredith's and the 
reply to it by sir William Blackstone, were ' The 
case of the last election for the county of Middle- 



hold it, Sir, that an injury offered to an 
individual is interesting to society. On 
this principle the people of England made 
common cause with Mr Wilkes. On this 
principle, if yoji are injured, they will join 
in your resentment. I shall not follow you 
through the insipid form of a third person, 
but address myself to you directly. 

You seem to think the channel of a 
pamphlet more respectable and better 
suited to the dignity of your cause than 
that of a newspaper. Be it so. Yet if 
newspapers are scurrilous, you must con- 
fess they are impartial. They gi\-e us, 
without any apparent preference, the wit 
and argument of the ministry, as well as 
the abusive dulness of the opposition. The 
scales are equally poised. It is not the 
printer's fault if the greater weight inclines 
the balance. 

Your pamphlet then is divided into an 
attack upon Mr Grenville's character, and 
a defence of your own. It would have 
been more consistent, perhaps, with your 
professed intentions, to have confined your- 
self to the last. But anger has some claim 
to indulgence, and railing is usually a relief 
to the mind. I hope you have found bene- 
fit from the experiment. It is not my 
design to enter into a formal vindication of 
Mr Grenville, upon his own principles. I 
have neither the honour of being personally 
known to him, 2 nor do I pretend to be 
completely master of all the facts. I need 
not run the risk of doing an injustice to his 
opinions, or to his conduct, when your 



sex considered,' attributed to Mr Dj'son, who 

was nick-named, by his opponents, Mungo : 
' Serious considerations ; ' ' IMungo on the use of 
Quotations ; ' ' Mungo's case considered ; ' ' Let- 
ter to Junius ; ' ' Postscript to Junius,' published 
in a subsequent edition to sir William Black- 
stone's reply, and 'The False Alarm,' written by 
Doctor Johnson. Of all these some incidental 
notice is taken in the course of the volume 
before us. — Edit. 

^ This, as already observed in the Preliminary 
Essay, is a truly singular assertion when taken in 
connexion with the fact, that I\Ir Grenville, of all 
the political characters of the day, appears to 
have been our author's favourite He voluntarily 
omits every opportunity of censuring him, and 
readily embraces every occasion of defending 
and extolling his conduct and principles. — Edit. 



176 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



pamphlet alone carries, upon the face of it, 
a full vindication of both. 

Your first reflection is, that Mr Grenville ^ 
was, of all men, the person who should 
not have complained of inconsistence with 
regard to Mr Wilkes. 2 This, Sir, is either 
an unmeaning sneer, a peevish expression 
of resentment, or, if it means any thing, 
you plainly beg the question ; for whether 
his parliamentary conduct with regard to 
Mr Wilkes has or has not been inconsist- 
ent, remains yet to be proved. But it 
seems he received upon the spot a sufficient 
chastisement for exercising so unfairly^ 
his talent of misrepresentation. You are a 
lawyer. Sir, and know better thaii I do, 
upon what particular occasions a talent 
for misrepresentation may be fairly exert- 
ed ; but to punish a man a second time, 
when he has been once sufficiently chas- 
tised, is rather too severe. It is not in the 
laws of England ; it is not in your own 
Commentaries, nor is it yet, I believe, in 
the new law you have revealed to the House 
of Commons. I hope this doctrine has no 
existence but in your own heart. After all. 
Sir, if you had consulted that sober discre- 
tion, which you seem to oppose with 
triumph to the honest jolhty of a tavern, it 
might have occurred to you that, although 
you could have succeeded in fixing a charge 
of inconsistence upon Mr Grenville, it 
would not have tended in any shape to 
exculpate yourself. 

Your next insinuation, that sir William 
Meredith had hastily adopted the false 
glosses of his new ally, is of the sam.e sort 

^ Mr Grenville had quoted a passage from the 
Doctor's excellent Commentaries, which directly- 
contradicted the principles maintained by the 
Doctor in the House of Commons. 

^ It has been already observed that the oppo- 
sition to Wilkes commenced with Mr George 
Grenville, who advised the issue of the General 
Warrant. It is observed also in the same note, 
that Grenville afterwards deserted the [ministry, 
and attached himself strenuously to the Whig 
party. See note, p. 167. Upon this apparent | 
inconsistency Junius shrewdly remarks, that I 
whatever propriety or impropriety there might 
have been in Mr Grenville's opposing Wilkes 
personally — the present question has nothing to [ 
do with it — as he now supports him not on 1 



with the first. It conveys a sneer as little 
worthy of the gravity of your character, as 
it is useless to your defence. It is of little 
moment to the public to enquire, by whom 
the charge was conceived, or by whom it 
was adopted. The only question we ask 
is, whether or no it be true. The remain- 
der of your reflections upon Mr Grenville's 
conduct destroy themselves. He could not 
possibly come prepared to traduce your in- 
tegrity to the House. He could not fore- 
see that you would even speak upon the 
question, much less could he foresee that 
you would maintain a direct contradiction 
of that doctrine, which you had solemnly, 
disinterestedly, and upon soberest reflection 
delivered to the public. He came armed 
indeed with what he thought a respectable 
authority, to support what he was con- 
vinced was the cause of truth, and I doubt 
not he intended to give you, in the course of 
the debate, an honourable and public testi- 
mony of his esteem. Thinking highly of 
his abilities, I cannot however allow him 
the gift of divination. As to what you are 
pleased to call a plan coolly formed to im- 
pose upon the House of Commons, and his 
producing it without provocation at mid- 
night, I consider it as the language of 
pique and invective, therefore unworthy 
of regard. But, Sir, I am sensible I have 
followed your example too long, and wan- 
dered from the point. 

The quotation from your Commentaries 
is matter of record. It can neither be 
altered^ by your friends, nor misrepresent- 
ed by your enemies ; and I am willing to 



account of hi.: personal character, but as the in- 
strument of the people at large, whose rights and 
privileges the ministry have grossly violated by 
their conduct towards him. — Edit, 

3 An inaccurate expression in the pamphlet 
alluded to. The chastisement that ensued is re- 
lated, p. lyg- Blackstone was thunderstruck at 
the contradiction pointed out by Grenville, and 
was incapable of uttering a word in his defence : 
— a pause ensued, and Mr Grenville insultingly 
shook his head : for the rest see the page as 
above referred to — Edit. 

^ When Wilkes was prosecuted for publishing 
the North Briton, lord Mansfield was charged 
with having altered the record. See p. 104, 
note.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



177 



take your own word for what you have said 
in the House of Commons. If there be a 
real difference between what you have 
written and what you have spoken, you 
confess that your book ought to be the 
standard. Now, Sir, if words mean any 
thing, I apprehend that, when a long 
enumeration ■ of disqualifications (whether 
by statute or the custom of parhament) 
concludes with these general comprehen- 
sive words, ' but subject to these restrictions 
and disqualifications, every subject of the 
realm is eligible of common right," a reader, 
of plain understanding, must of course rest 
satisfied that no species of disqualification 
whatsoever had been omitted. The known 
character of the author, and the apparent 
accuracy with which the whole work is 
compiled, would confirm him in his opin- 
ion ; nor could he possibly form any other 
judgment, without looking upon your Com- 
mentaries in the same light in which you 
consider those penal laws, which, though 
not repealed, are fallen into disuse, and 
are now in effect A snare to the un- 

WAUY.l 

You tell us indeed that it was not part of 
your plan to specify any temporary in- 
capacity, and that you could not, without 
a spirit of prophecy, have specified the dis- 
ability of a private individual, subsequent 
to the period at which you wrote. What 
your plan was I know not ; but what it 
should have been, in order to complete the 
work you have given us, is by no means 
difficult to determine. The incapacity, 
which you call temporary, may continue 
seven years ; and though you might not 
have foreseen the particular case of Mr 
Wilkes, you might and should have fore- 
seen the possibiUty of such a case, and told 
us how far the House of Commons were 
authorized to proceed in it by the law and 
custom of parliament. The freeholders of 
Middlesex would then have known what 
they had to trust to, and would never have 



^ If, in stating the law upon any point, a 
judge deliberately affirms that he has included 
every case, and it should appear that he has pur- 

f)osely omitted a material case, he does in effect 
ay a snare for the unwary. — Author. 



returned Mr Wilkes, when colonel Luttrell 
was* a candidate against him. They would 
have chosen some indifferent person, rather 
than submit to be represented by the ob- 
ject of their contempt and detestation. 

Your attempt to distinguish between dis- 
abilities which affect whole classes of men, 
and those which aiTect individuals only, is 
really unworthy of your understanding. 
Your Commentaries had taught me that, 
although the instance in which a penal 
I law is exerted be particular, the laws them- 
selves are general. They are made for the 
benefit and instruction of the public, though 
the penalty falls only upon an individual. 
You cannot but know. Sir, that what was 
Mr Wilkes's case yesterday may be yours 
or mine to-morrow, and that consequently 
the common right of every subject of the 
realm is invaded by it. Professing there- 
fore to treat of the constitution of the 
House of Commons, and of the laws and 
customs relative to that constitution, you 
certainly were guilty of a most unpardon- 
able omission in taking no notice of a right 
and privilege of the House, more extra- 
ordinary and more arbitrary than all the 
others they possess put together. If the 
expulsion of a member, not under any 
other legal disability, of itself creates in 
him an incapacity to be re-elected, I see a 
I ready way marked out, by which the ma- 
I jority may at any time remove the honest- 
est and ablest men who happen to be in 
I opposition to them. To say that they will 
I fiot make this extravagant use of their 
power, would be a language unfit for a 
man so learned in the laws as you are. 
By your doctrine, Sir, they have the power, 
and laws you know are intended to guard 
against what men may do, not to trust to 
what they will do. 

Upon the whole, Sir, the charge against 
you is of a plain, simple nature : It ap- 
pears even upon the face of your own 
pamphlet. On the contrary, your justifica- 
tion of yourself is full of subtlety and 



This last part of the sentence is a quotation 
artfully selected from Blackstone's own works, 
and turned against himself. — Edit. 
12 



178 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



refinement, and in some places not very 
intelligible. If I were personally your 
enemy, I should dwell, with a mahgnant 
pleasure, upon those great and useful quali- 
fications, which you certainly possess, and 
by which you once acquired, though they 
could not preserve to you, the respect and 
esteem of your country. I should enum- 
erate the honours you have lost, and the 
virtues you have disgraced : but having no 
private resentments to gratify, I think it 
sufificient to have given my opinion of your 
pubhc conduct, leaving the punishment it 
deserves to your closet and to yourself. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER XIX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 14 August, 1769. 

A CORRESPONDENT of the St 

" The following is a copy of the letter alluded 
to:— 

For the St James's Chronicle. 



Sir, 



TO JUNIUS. 



Once more, Mr Junius, and but once, 
let me address a few words to you on the sub- 
ject of your Antiblackstonlan letter, reminding 
you at the same time, that I am no formal 
defender of the celebrated commentator (who 
wants no such defence), but that it is my sole 
purpose to show that you are not a competent 
reader of his works, or that you have wilfully 
and malevolently perverted them. 

You tell Mr Blackstone that ' his attempt to 
distinguish between disabilities that affect whole 
classes of men, and those which affect individuals 
only, is really unworthy his understanding.' And 
yet, Sir, that is no new distinction ; it is not 
framed and invented by Mr Blackstone. Private 
or personal laws, whether inflicting penalties and 
disabilities, or conferring privileges and immu- 
nities, on the particular object of them, and dis- 
tinguished from the general and permanent 
course of law, have been known under all states, 
and under every legislation, both ancient and 
modern. They are enacted pro re nata, and 
lose all their force as soon as they have oper- 
ated upon the individuals marked out by them. 
But, ' you have been taught, you say (yet surely 
not from the Commentaries), that, although the 
instance in which a penal law is exerted be par- 
ticular, the laws themselves (I must suppose you 
to speak of the l.iv/s now under debate) are 
general.' But, before you could write thus, 
what daemon of confusion must have seized your 



James's Chronicle first wilfully misunder- 
stands Junius, then censures him for a bad 
reasoner.i Junius does not say that it was 
incumbent upon Dr Blackstone to foresee 
and state the crimes, for which Mr Wilkes 
was expelled. If, by a spirit of prophecy, 
he had even done so, it would have been 
nothing to the purpose. The question is, 
not for what particular offences a person 
may be expelled, but generally, whether by 
the law of parliament expulsion alone 
creates a disquahfication ? If the affirm- 
ative be the law of parliament. Doctor 
Blackstone might and should have told us 
so. The question is not confined to this 
or that particular person, but forms one 
great general branch of disqualification, 
too important in itself, and too extensive in 
its consequences, to be omitted in an ac- 
curate work expressly treating of the law 
of parliament. 
The truth of the matter is evidently this. 

noddle ! Were the votes of the House, by which 
sir Robert Walpole, Mr Ward, and many others, 
have been expelled, and the act of parliament 
which inflicted a perpetual exclusion on the S. 
S. Directors, general laws? Was the vote to 
expel Mr Wilkes in the last parliament, a gener- 
al law ? So far from' it, that its force was quite 
evaporated, and it could not operate even upon 
him, in the present. Another vote of expulsion 
was necessary ; and the two votes put together 
could no more expel Mr Townshend and Mr 
Sawbridge from the House of Commons, than 
the decree of the Roman senate on Catiline and 
the rest of the conspirators, could send our hero 
and his whole gang to Tyburn. 

Acts of attainder come under the same descrip- 
tion of personal, temporary, and particular laws ; 
and that I may help you the better to under- 
stand this whole matter, and show you, at the 
same time, the accuracy and consistency of Mr 
Blackstone, I shall give you his account of 
them (Comm. b. IV. p. 256): 'As for acts of 
parliament to attaint particular persons of 
treason and felony, or to inflict pains and 
penalties, beyond or contrary to the common 
law, to serve a special purpose, / speak not of 
them (mark that, Junius) ; being to all intents 
and purposes new laws, made pro re nata, and 
by no means an execution of those already in 
being.' I shall now take my leave of you, hav- 
ing, I hope, sufficiently proved to Mr Baldwin's 
readers, in the instance you have afforded me, 
how prettily sometimes a man may write without 
being able to read. 

PUBLIUS. 

Middle Temple, August 6, 1769. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



179 



Dr Blackstone, while he was speaking in 
the House of Commons, never once thought 
of his Commentaries, until the contradiction 
was unexpectedly urged, and stared him in 
the face. Instead of defending himself upon 
the spot, he sunk under the charge, in an 
agony of confusion and despair. It is well 
known that there was a pause of some minutes 
in the House, from a general expectation 
that the Doctor would say something in his 
own defence ; but it seems, his faculties 
were too much overpowered to think of 
those subtleties and refinements, which have 
since occurred to him. It was then Mr 
Grenville received that severe chastisement 
which the Doctor mentions with so much 
triumph. / wish the honourable genile7na72 , 
instead of shaking his head, would shake a 
good argument out of it. If to the elegance, 
novelty, and bitterness of this ingenious 
sarcasm, we add the natural melody of the 
amiable sir Fletcher Norton's pipe, we shall 
not be surprised that Mr Grenville was un- 
able to make him any reply. 

As to the Doctor, I would recommend it 
to him to be quiet. If not, he may perhaps 
hear again from Junius himself. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 

Postscript 1 to a pamphlet intitled, ' An 
Answer to the Question stated.' Supposed 
to be written by Dr Blackstone, solicitor 
to the Queen, in answer to JuNius's 
Letter. 

Since these papers were sent to 
the press, a writer in the public papers, who 
subscribes himself Junius, has made a feint 
of bringing this question to a short issue. 
Though the foregoing observations contain, 
in my opinion at least, a full refutation of 
all that this writer has offered, I shall, how- 
ever, bestow a very few words upon him. 
It will cost me very little trouble to unravel 
and expose the sophistry of his argument. 

'I take the question,' says he, 'to be 
strictly this: Whether or no it be the known 
established law of parliament, that the ex- 



\ This is the Postscript, added in a subsequent 
edition, to sir William Blackstone's reply to sir 
William Meredith's pamphlet, as noticed, p. 175, 



pulsion of a member of the House of Com- 
mons of itself creates in him such an inca- 
pacity to be re-elected, that, atasubsequent 
election, any votes given to him are null 
and void, and that any other candidate, 
who, except the person expelled, has the 
greatest number of votes, ought to be the 
sitting member." 

Waving for the present any objection I 
may have to this state of the question, I 
shall venture to meet our champion upon 
his own ground ; and attempt to support 
the affirmative of it, in one of the two ways, 
by which he says it can be alone fairly sup- 
ported. ' If there be no statute,' says he, 
' in which the specific disability is clearly 
created, &c. (and we acknowledge there is 
none), the custom of parliament must then 
be referred to, and some case or cases, 
strictly in point, must be produced, with the 
decision of the court upon them.' Now I 
assert, that this has been done. Mr Wal- 
pole's ease is strictly in point, to prove that 
expulsion creates absolute incapacity of 
being re-elected. This was the clear de- 
cision of the House upon it ; and was a full 
declaration, that incapacity was the neces- 
sary consequence of expulsion. The law 
was as clearly and firmly fixed by this reso- 
lution, and is as binding in every subse- 
quent case of expulsion, as if it had been 
declared by an express statute, ' That a 
member expelled by a resolution of the 
House of Commons shall be deemed inca- 
pable of being re-elected.' Whatever doubt 
then there might have been of the law be- 
fore Mr Walpole's case, with respect to the 
full operation of a vote of expulsion, there 
can be none now. The decision of the 
House upon this case is strictly in point to 
prove, that expulsion creates absolute inca- 
pacity in law of being re-elected. 

But incapacity in law in this instance 
must have the same operation and effect 
with incapacity in law in every other in- 
stance. Now, incapacity of being re-elect- 
ed impHes in its very terms, that any votes 



note ; see also a further extract on this subject, 
from a 'Speech without-doors,'by sir W. B.,p. 
172, note.— Edit, 



i8o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



given to the incapable person, at a subse- 
quent election, are null and void. This 
is its necessary operation, or it has no 
operation at all. It is vox et prceterea 
nihil. We can no more be called upon to 
prove this proposition, than we can to prove 
that a dead man is not alive, or that twice 
two are four. When the terms are under- 
stood, the proposition is self-evident. 

Lastly, It is in all cases of election, the 
known and established law of the land, 
grounded upon the clearest principles of 
reason and common sense, that if the votes 
given to one candidate are null and void, 
they cannot be opposed to the votes given 
to another candidate. They cannot affect 
the votes of such candidate at all. As they 
have, on the one hand, no positive quality 
to add or establish, so have they, on the 
other hand, no negative one to subtract or 
destroy. They are, in a word, a mere non- 
entity. Such was the determination of the 
House of Commons in the Maiden and 
Bedford elections ; cases strictly in point to 
the present question, as far as they are 
meant to be in point. And to say, that 
they are not in point, in all circumstances, 
in those particularly which are independent 
of the proposition which they are quoted to 
prove, is to say no more than that Maiden 
is not Middlesex, nor serjeant Comyns Mr 
Wilkes. 

Let us see then how our proof stands. 
Expulsion creates incapacity ; incapacity 
annihilates any votes given to the incapable 
person. The votes given to the qualified 
candidate stand upon their own bottom, 
firm and untouched, and can alone have 
effect. This, one would think, would be 
sufficient. But we are stopped short, and 
told, that none of our precedents come 
home to the present case ; and are chal- 
lenged to produce ' a precedent in all the 
proceedings of the House of Commons that 
does come home to it, viz. where an expelled 
member has been returned again, atid an- 
other candidate, with an inferior number 
of votes, has been declared the sitting mem- 
ber.' 

Instead of a precedent, I will beg leave 



to put a case ; which, I fancy, will be quite 
as decisive to the present point. Suppose 
another Sacheverel (and every party must 
have its Sacheverel) should, at some future 
election, take it into his head to offer himself 
a candidate for the county of Middlesex. 
He is opposed by a candidate, whose coat 
is of a different colour ; but however of a 
very good colour. The divine has an in- 
disputable majority ; nay, the poor layman 
is absolutely distanced. The sheriff, after 
having had his conscience well informed by 
the reverend casuist, returns him, as he 
supposes, duly elected. The whole House 
is in an uproar, at the apprehension of so 
strange an appearance amongst them. A 
motion however is at length made, that the 
person was incapable of being elected, that 
his election therefore is null and void, and 
that his competitor ought to have been re- 
turned. No, says a great orator, First show 
me your law for this proceeding. ' Either 
produce me a statute, in which the specific 
disability of a clergyman is created ; or 
produce me a precedent where a clergyman 
has been returned, and another candidate, 
with an ififerior number of votes, has been 
declared the sitting member.' No such 
statute, no such precedent, is to be found. 
What answer then is to be given to this de- 
mand ? The very same answer which I will 
give to that of Junius : Tha;t there is more 
than one precedent in the proceedings of 

the House ' where an incapable person 

has been returned, and another candidate, 
with an inferior number of votes, has been 
declared the sitting member ; and that this 
is the known and established law, in all 
cases of incapacity, from whatever cause it 
may arise.' 

I shall now therefore beg leave to make 
a slight amendment to JUNius's state of the 
question, the affirmative of which will then 
stand thus : 

' It is the known and established law of' 
parliament, that the expulsion of any mem- 
ber of the House of Commons creates in 
him an incapacity of being re-elected ; that 
any votes g^ven to him at a subsequent 
election are, in consequence of such in- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



capacity, null and void ; and that any other 
candidate, who, except the person rendered 
incapable, has the greatest number of votes, 
ought to be the sitting member.' 

But our business is not yet quite finished. 
Mr Walpole's case must have a re-hearing. 
' It is not possible,' says this writer, ' to 
I conceive a case more exactly in point.. Mr 
Walpole was expelled, and having a ma- 
jority of votes at the next election, was 
returned again. The friends of Mr Taylor, 
a candidate set up by the ministry, petition- 
ed the House that he might be the sitting 
member. Thus far the circumstances tally 
exactly, except that our House of Com- 
mons saved Mr Luttrell the trouble of 
petitioning. The point of law, however, 
was the same. It came regularly before 
the House, and it was their business to 
determine upon it. They did determine 
it ; for they declared Mr Taylor not duly 
elected.' 

Instead of examining the justness of this 
representation, I shall beg leave to oppose 
against it rriy own view of this case, in as 
plain a manner and as few words as I am 
able. 

It was the known and established law of 
parUament, when the charge against Mr 
Walpole came before the House of Com- 
mons, that they had power to expel, to 
disable, and to render incapable for of- 
fences. In virtue of this power they ex- 
pelled him. 

Had they, in the very vote of expulsion, 
adjudged him, in terms, to be incapable of 
being re-elected, there must have been at 
once an end with him. But though the 
right of the House, both to expel, and ad- 
judge incapable, was clear and indubitable, 
it does not appear to me, that the full 
operation and effect of a vote of expulsion 
singly was so. The law in this case had 
never been expressly declared. There had 
been no event to call up such a declaration. 
I trouble not myself with the grammatical 
meaning of the word expulsion. I regard 
only its legal meaning. This was not, as I 
think, precisely fixed. The House thought 
proper to fix it, and explicitly to declare the 



full consequences of their former vote, 
before they suffered these consequences to 
take effect. And in this proceeding they 
acted upon the most liberal and solid prin- 
ciples of equity, justice, and law. What 
then did the burgesses of Lynn collect from 
the second vote? Their subsequent con- 
duct will tell us : it will with certainty tell 
us, that they considered it as decisive 
against Mr Walpole ; it will also, with 
equal certainty, tell us, that, upon suppo- 
sition that the law of election stood then 
as it does now, and that they knew it to 
stand thus, they inferred, ' that at a future I 
election, and in case of a similar return, the 
House would receive the same candidate, 
as duly elected, whom they had before 
rejected." They could infer nothing but this. 

It is needless to repeat the circumstance 
of dissimilarity in the present case. It will 
be sufficient to observe, that as -the law of 
parliament, upon which the House of Com- 
mons grounded every step of their proceed- 
ings, was clear beyond the reach of doubt, 
so neither could the freeholders of Middle- 
sex be at a loss to foresee what must be the 
inevitable consequence of their proceedings 
in opposition to it. For upon every return 
of Mr Wilkes, the House made enquiry, 
whether any votes were given to any other 
candidate ? 

But I could venture, for the experiment's 
sake, even to give this writer the utmost he 
asks ; to allow the most perfect similarity 
throughout in these two cases ; to allow, 
that the law of expulsion was quite as clear 
to the burgesses of Lynn, as to the free- 
holders of Middlesex. It will, I am confi- 
dent, avail his cause but little. It will only 
prove, that the law of election at that time 
was different from the present law. It will 
prove, that, in all cases of an incapable 
candidate returned, the law then was, that 
the whole election should be void. But 
now we know that this is not law. The 
cases of Maiden and Bedford were, as has 
been seen, determined upon other and 
more just principles. And these determin- 
ations are, I imagine, admitted on all sides 
to be law. 



l82 



LETTERS OF jUNIUf^; 



I would willingly draw a veil over the re- 
maining part of this paper. It is astonish- 
ing, it is painful, to see men of parts and 
abihty, giving in to the most unworthy 
artifices, and descending so much below 
their true line of character. But if they 
are not the dupes of their sophistry (which 
is hardly to be conceived), let them consider 
that they are something much worse. 

The dearest interests of this countiy are 
its laws and its constitution. Against every 
attack upon these, there will, I hope, be 
always found amongst us the firmest spirit 
of resistance ; superior to the united efforts 
of faction and ambition. For ambition, 
though it does not always take the lead of 
faction, will be sure in the end to make the 
most fatal advantage of it, and draw it to 
its own purposes. But, I trust, our day of 
trial is yet far off ; and there is a fund of' 
good sense i?t this country, -which cannot 
long be deceived^ by the arts either of false 
reasoning, or false patriotism. 



LETTER XX.i 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 8 August, 1769. 

The gentleman who has published 
an answer to sir William Meredith's 
pamphlet, having honoured me with a 
postscript of six quarto pages, which he 
moderately calls, bestowing a very few 
words upon me, I cannot, in common 
politeness, refuse him a reply. The form 
and magnitude of a quarto imposes upon 
the mind ; and men who are unequal to 
the labour of discussing an intricate argu- 
ment, or wish to avoid it, are wilhng 
enough to suppose, that much has been 
proved, because much has been said. Mine, 
I confess, are humble labours. I do not 
presume to instruct the learned, but simply 
to inform the body of the people ; and I 



^ ' I wish the enclosed to be announced to- 
morrow conspicuously . I am not capable of writ- 
ing anything more finished.' Private Letter, 
No. 6. — Edit. 



prefer that channel of conveyance, which is 
likely to spread farthest among them. The 
advocates of the ministry seem to me to 
write for fame, and to flatter themselves, 
that the size of their works will make them 
immortal. They pile up reluctant quarto 
upon solid folio, as if their labours, because 
they are gigantic, could contend with truth 
and heaven. 

The writer of the volume in question 
meets mc upon my own ground. He ac- 
knowledges there is no statute, by which 
the specific disability we speak of is created, 
but he affirms, that the custom of parlia- 
ment has been referred to, and that a case 
strictly in point has been produced, with 
the decision of the court upon it. — I thank 
him for coming so fairly to the point. He 
asserts, that the case of Mr Walpole is 
strictly in point to prove that expulsion 
creates an absolute incapacity of being re- 
elected ; and for this purpose he refers 
generally to the first vote of the House 
upon that occasion, without venturing to 
recite the vote itself. The unfair, disin- 
genuous artifice of adopting that part of a 
precedent which seems to suit his purpose, 
and omitting the remainder, deserves some 
pity, but cannot excite my resentment. He 
takes advantage eagerly of the first reso- 
lution, by which Mr Walpole's incapacity 
is declared ; but as to the two following, 
by which the candidate with the fewest 
votes was declared ' not duly elected,' and 
the election itself vacated, I dare say he 
would be v/ell satisfied, if they were for 
ever blotted out of the journals of the House 
of Commons. In fair argument, no part 
of a precedent should be admitted, unless 
the whole of it be given to us together. 
The author has divided his precedent, for 
he knew, that, taken together, it produced 
a consequence directly the reverse of that, 
which he endeavours to draw from a vote 
of expulsion. But what will this honest 
person say, if I take him at his word, and 
demonstrate to him, that the House of 
Commons never meant to found Mr Wal- 
pole's incapacity upon his expulsion only ? 
What subterfuge will then remain ? 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



183 



Let it be remembered that we are speak- 
ing of the intention of men, who Hved more 
than half a century ago, and that such 
intention can only be collected from their 
words and actions, as they are delivered to 
us upon record. To prove their designs by 
a supposition of what they would have done, 
opposed to what they actually did, is mere 
trifling and impertinence. The vote, by 
which Mr Walpole's incapacity was de- 
clared, is thus expressed, ' That Robert 
Walpole, Esq., having been this session of 
parHament committed a prisoner to the 
Tower, and expelled this House for a high 
breach of trust in the execution of his office, 
and notorious corruption when secretary at 
war, was and is incapable of being elected 
a member to serve in this present parlia- 
ment.' 1 Now, Sir, to my understanding, 
no proposition of this kind can be more 
evident, than that the House of Commons, 
by this very vote, themselves understood, 
and meant to declare, that Mr Walpole's 
incapacity arose from the crimes he had 

^ It is well worth remarking, that the com- 
piler of a certain quarto, called The case of the 
late election for the county of Middlesex con- 
sidered, has the impudence to recite this very- 
vote, in the following terms, vide page 11. ' Re- 
solved, that Robert Walpole, Esq., having been 
that session of parliament expelled the House, 
was and is incapable of being elected a member 
to serve in that present parliament.' There can- 
not be a stronger positive proof of the treachery 
of the compiler, nor a stronger presumptive proof 
that he was convinced that the vote, if truly re- 
cited, would overturn his whole argument. — 
Author. 

The editor has already remarked that the 
pamphlet alluded to in the above note of the 
author was from the pen of Mr Dyson. See 
p. 175, note. — Edit. 

^TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 22 May, 1771. 

Very early in the debate upon the de- 
cision of the Middlesex election, it was observed 
by Junius, that the House of Commons had not 
only exceeded their boasted precedent of the 
expulsion and subsequent incapacitation of Mr 
Walpole, but that they had not even adhered to 
it strictly as far as it went. After convicting Mr 
Dyson of giving a false quotation from the 
Journals, and having explained the purpose 
which that contemptible fraud was intended to 
answer, he proceeds to state the vote itself, by 
which Mr Walpole's supposed incapacity was 



committed, not from the punishment the 
House annexed to them. The high breach 
of trust, the notorious corruption, are stated 
in the strongest terms. They do not tell 
us he was incapable because he was ex- 
pelled, but because he had been guilty of 
such offences as justly rendered him un- 
worthy of a seat in parliament. If they had 
intended to fix the disability upon his ex- 
pulsion alone, the mention of his crimes in 
the same vote would have been highly im- 
proper. It could only perplex the minds of 
the electors, who, if they collected any 
thing from so confused a declaration of the 
law of parliament, must have concluded 
that their representative had been declared 
incapable because he was highly guilty, not 
because he had been punished. But even 
admitting them to have understood it in 
the other sense, they must then, from the 
very terms of the vote, have united the 
idea of his being sent to the Tower with 
that of his expulsion, and considered his 
incapacity as the joint effect of both.2 



declared, viz. — ' Resolved, that Robert Walpole, 
Esq., having been this session of parliament com- 
mitted a prisoner to the Tower, and expelled 
this House for a high breach of trust in the exe- 
cution of his office, and notorious corruption 
when secretary at war, was and is incapable of 
being elected a member to serve in this present 
parliament : ' — and then observes that, from the 
terms of the vote, we have no right to annex the 
incapacitation to the expulsion only, for that, as 
the proposition stands, it must arise equalli^ from 
the expulsion and the commitment to the Tower. 
I believe. Sir, no man, who knows any thing of 
dialectics, or who understands English, will dis- 
pute the truth and fairness of this construction. 
But Junius has a great authority to support 
him, which, to speak with the duke of Grafton, I 
accidentally met with this morning in the course 
of my reading. It contains an admonition, which 
cannot be repeated too often. Lord isomers, in 
his excellent tract upon the rights of the people, 
after reciting the vote of the convention of the 
28th of January, 1689, viz. — ' That King James 
the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the 
constitution of this kingdom bj'- breaking the 
original contract between king and people, and 
by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked per- 
sons having violated the fundamental laws, and 
having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, 
hath abdicated the government, &c.' — makes this 
observation upon it. 'The word abdicated 
relates to all the clauses aforegoing, as well as 
to his deserting the kingdom, or else they would 
have been wholly in vain.' And that there might 



i84 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



I do not mean to give an opinion upon 
the justice of the proceedings of the House 
of Commons with regard to Mr Walpole ; 
but certainly, if I admitted their censure to 
be well founded, I could no way avoid 
agreeing with them in the consequence they 
drew from it. I could never have a doubt, 
in law or reason, that a man, convicted of 
a high breach of trust, and of a notorious 
corruption, in the execution of a public 
office, was and ought to be incapable of 
sittin*g in the same parliament. Far from 
attempting to invalidate that vote, I should 
have wished that the incapacity declared by 
it could legally have ^been continued for 
ever. 

Now, Sir, observe how forcibly the 
argument returns. The House of Com- 
mons, upon the face of their proceedings, 
had the strongest motives to declare Mr 
Walpole incapable of being re-elected. 
They thought such a man unworthy to sit 
among them. — To that point they pro- 
ceeded ; — no farther ; for they respected the 
rights of the people, while they asserted 
their own. They did not infer, from Mr 
Walpole's incapacity, that his opponent 
was duly elected • on the contrary, they 
declared Mr Taylor 'Not duly elected,' 
and the election itself void. 



be no pretence for conRningthe addtcati'on merely 
to the luithdrawing, lord Somers farther ob- 
serves, that King James, by re/tising to govern 
lis according to that law, by which he held the 
crown, implicitly renounced his title to it. 

If JuNius's construction of the vote against 
Mr Walpole be now admitted (and indeed I 
cannot comprehend how it can honestly be dis- 
puted), the advocates of the House of Commons 
must either give up their precedent entirely, or 
be reduced to the necessity of maintaining one of 
the grossest absurdities imaginable, viz. — ' That 
a commitment to the Tower is a constituent part 
of, and contributes half at least to the incapacita- 
tion of the person who suffers it.' 

I need not make you any excuse for en- 
deavouring to keep alive the attention of the 
public to the decision of the Middlesex election. 
The more I consider it, the more I am convinced 
that, as 3. fact, it is indeed highly injurious to 
the rights of the people ; but that, as ^precedent, 
it is one of the most dangerous that ever was 
established against those who are to come after 
us. Yet I am so far a moderate man, that I 
verily believe the majority of the House of 
Commons, when they passed this dangerous 



Such, however, is the precedent, which 
my honest friend assures us is strictly in 
point to prove, that expulsion of itself 
creates an incapacity of being elected. If 
it had been so, the present House of Com- 
mons should at least have followed strictly 
the example before them, and should have 
stated to us, in the same vote, the crimes 
for which they expelled Mr Wilkes ; where- 
as they resolve simply, that, ' having been 
expelled, he was and is incapable.' In this 
proceeding I am authorized to affirm, they 
have neither statute, nor custom, nor reason, 
nor one single precedent to support them. 
On the other side, there is indeed a pre- 
cedent so strongly in point, that all the en- 
chanted castles of ministerial magic fall 
before it. In the year 1698 (a period which 
the rankest Tory dare not except against) 
Mr WoUaston was expelled, re-elected, and 
admitted to take his seat in the same par- 
liament. The ministry have precluded 
themselves from all objections drawn from 
the cause of his expulsion, for they affirm 
absolutely, that expulsion of itself creates 
the disability. Now, Sir, let sophistry 
evade, let falsehood assert, and impudence 
deny — here stands the precedent, a land- 
mark to direct us through a troubled sea of 
controversy, conspicuous and unremoved. 



vote, neither understood the question, nor knew 
the consequence of what they were doing. I'heir 
motives were rather despicable, than criminal, in 
the extreme. One effect they certainly did not 
foresee. They are now reduced to such a situa- 
tion, that if a member of the present House of 
Commons were to conduct himself ever so im- 
properly, and in reality deserve to be sent back 
to his constituents with a mark of disgrace, they 
would not dare to expel him ; because they know 
that the people, in order to try again the great 
question of right, or to thwart an odious Hou^e 
of Commons, would probably overlook his im- 
mediate unworthiness, and return the same per- 
son to parliament. — But, in time, the precedent 
will gain strength. A future House of Commons 
will have no such apprehensions, consequently 
will not scruple to follow a precedent, which 
they did not establish. The miser himself sel- 
dom lives to enjoy the fruit of his extortion ; but 
his heir succeeds to him of course, and takes 
possession without censure. No man expects him 
to make restitution, and, no matter for his title, 
he lives quietly upon the estate. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



185 



I have dwelt the longer upon the discus- 
sion of this point, because, in my opinion, 
it comprehends the whole question. The 
rest is unworthy of notice. We are en- 
quiring whether incapacity be or be not 
created by expulsion. In the cases of Bed- 
ford and Maiden, the incapacity of the per- 
sons returned, was matter of public noto- 
riety, for it was created by act of parlia- 
ment. But, really, Sir, my honest friend's 
suppositions are as unfavourable to him as 
his facts. He well knows that the clergy, 
besides that they are represented in common 
with their fellow-subjects, have also a separ- 
ate parliament of their own ; — that their 
incapacity to sit in the House of Commons 
has been confirmed by repeated decisions 
of the House, and that the law of parlia- 
ment, declared by those decisions, has been 
for above two centuries notorious and un- 
disputed. The author is certainly at hberty 
to fancy cases, and make whatever com.- 
parisons he thinks proper ; his suppositions 
still continue as distant from fact, as his 
wild discourses are from solid argument. 

The conclusion of his book is candid to 
an extreme. He offers to grant me all I 
desire. He thinks he may safely admit that 
the case of Mr Walpole makes directly 
against him, for it seems he has one grand 
solution /// petto for all difficulties. If, 
says he, I were to allow all this, it will only 
prove, that the law of election was different, 
in queen Anne s time, from what it is at 
present. 

This indeed is more than I expected. 
The principle, I know, has been maintained 
in fact, but I never expected to see it so 
formally declared. What can he mean ? 
does he assume this language to satisfy the 
doubts of the people, or does he mean to 
rouse their indignation? are the ministry 
daring enough to affirm, that the House of 
Commons have a right to make and un- 
make the law of parliament at their plea- 
sure ? — Does the law of parliament, which 
we are so often told is the law of the land, 
— does the common right of every subject 
of the realm, — depend upon an arbitrary 
capricious vote of one branch of the legis- 



lature ? — The voice of truth and reason must 
be silent. 

The ministry tell us plainly that this is no 
longer a question of right, but of power 
and force alone. What was law yesterday 
is not law to-day : and now, it seems, we 
have no better rule to live by, than the 
temporary discretion and fluctuating in- 
tegrity of the House of Commons. 

Professions of patriotism are become 
stale and ridiculous. For my own part, I 
claim no merit from endeavouring to do a 
service to my fellow-subjects. I have done 
it to the best of my understanding ; and, 
without looking for the approbation of other 
men, my conscience is satisfied. What re- 
mains to be done concerns the collective 
body of the people. They are now to 
determine for themselves, whether they will 
firmly and constitutionally assert their 
rights ; or make an humble, slavish sur- 
render of them at the feet of the ministry. 
To a generous m.ind there cannot be a 
doubt. We owe it to our ancestors to pre- 
serve entire those rights which they have 
delivered to our care : we owe it to our 
posterity not to suffer their dearest inherit- 
ance to be destroyed. But if it were pos- 
sible for us to be insensible of these sacred 
claims, there is yet an obhgation binding 
upon ourselves, from which nothing can 
acquit us, — a personal interest, which we 
cannot surrender. To alienate even our 
own rights, would be a crime as much more 
enormous than suicide, as a Hfe of civil 
security and freedom is superior to a bare 
existence ; and if life be the bounty of 
heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part 
of the gift, if we consent to surrender that 
certain rule of living, without which the 
condition of human nature is not only 
miserable, but contemptible. 

JUNIUS. 

LETTER XXI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 22 August, ij6g. 

I MUST beg of you to print a few 



i86 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



lines in explanation of some passages in 
my last letter, which I see have been mis- 
understood. 

1. When I said, that the House of 
Commons never meant to found Mr Wal- 
pole's incapacity on his expulsion only, I 
meant no more than to deny the general 
proposition, that expulsion alone creates 
the incapacity. If there be any thing am- 
biguous in the expression, I beg leave to 
explain it by saying, that in my opinion, 

j expulsion neither creates, nor in any part 
contributes to create, the incapacity in 
question. 

2. I carefully avoided entering into the 
merits of Mr Walpole's case. I did not 
enquire, whether the House of Commons 
acted justly, or whether they truly declared 
the law of parliament. My remarks went 
only to their apparent meaning and inten- 
tion, as it stands declared in their own re- 
solution. 

3. I never meant to affirm, that a com- 
mitment to the Tower created a disqualifi- 
cation. On the contrary, I considered that 
idea as an absurdity, into which the min- 
istry must inevitably fall, if they reasoned 
right upon their own principles. 

The case of Mr Wollaston speaks for 
itself. The ministry assert that expulsion 
alone creates an absolute, complete inca- 
pacity to be re-elected to sit in the same 
parUament. This proposition they have 
uniformly maintained, without any con- 
dition or modification whatsoever. Mr 
Wollaston was expelled, re-elected, and 
admitted to take his seat in the same par- 
liament.— I leave it to the public to de- 
termine, whether this be a plain matter of 
fact, or mere nonsense and declamation. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

4 Sept,, 1769. 
Argument against Fact ; or, A new 
System of political Logic, by which the 
ministry have demonstrated, to the satis- 



faction of their friends, that expulsion 
alone creates a complete incapacity to be 
re-elected ; alias, that a subject of this 
realm may be robbed of his common 
right, by a vote of the House of Com- 
mons. 

first fact. 
Mr Wollaston, in 1698, was ex- 
felled, re-elected, and admitted to take his 
seat. 

ARGUMENT. 

As this cannot conveniently be recon- 
ciled with our general proposition, it may 
be necessary to shift our ground, and look 
back to the cause of Mr WoUaston's expul- 
sion. From thence it will appear clearly 
that, 'although he was expelled, he had 
not rendered himself a culprit too igno- 
minious to sit in parliament, and that hav- 
ing resigned his employment, he was no 
longer incapacitated by law.' Vide Serious 
Considei-ations, page 23, Or thus, 'The 
House, somewhat inaccurately, used the 
word EXPELLED ; they should have called 
it A motion.' Vide Mungds case con- 
sidered, page Ti. Or, in short, if these 
arguments should be thought insufficient, 
we may fairly deny the fact. For example ; 
' I affirm that he was not re-elected. The 
same Mr Wollaston, who was expelled, 
was not again elected. The same indi- 
vidual, if you please, walked into the House, 
and took his seat there ; but the same per- 
son in law was not admitted a member of 
that parliament, from which he had been 
discarded." Vide Letter to Junius, page 12. 

SECOND fact. 

Mr Walpole, having been committed to 
the Tower, and expelled for a high breach 
of trust and notorious corruption in a pub- 
lic office, was declared incapable, ^c. 

ARGUMENT. 

From the terms of this vote, nothing can 
be more evident than that the House of 
Commons meant to fix the incapacity upon 
the punishment, and not upon the crime ; 
but lest it should appear in a different light 
to weak, uninformed persons, it may be 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



187 



advisable to gut the resolution, and give it 
to the public, with all possible solemnity, 
in the following terms, viz. ' Resolved, 
that Robert Walpole, Esq. having been 
that session of . parliament expelled the 
House, was and is incapable of being elect- 
ed a member to serve in that present par- 
liament.' Vide Mungo, o?t the use of 
quoiatio7is, page ir. 

N.B. The author of the answer to sir 
William Meredith^ seems to have made 
use of Mungo's quotation, for in page 18, 
he assures us, ' That the declaratory vote 
of the 17th of February, 1769, was indeed 
a literal copy of the resolution of the House 
in Mr Walpole's case.' 

THIRD FACT. 
His opponent, Mr Taylor, having the 
smallest ti umber of votes at the next elec- 
tion, was declared not duly elected. 

ARGUMENT. 
This fact we consider as directly in point 
to prove that Mr Luttrell ought to be the 
sitting member, for the following reasons, 
' The burgesses of Lynn could draw no 
other inference from this resolution, but 
this, that at a future election, and in case 
of a similar return, the House would receive 
the same candidate as duly elected, whom 
they had before rejected." Vide Postscript 
to Junius, /. 37. Or thus : ' This their 
resolution leaves no room to doubt what 
part they would have taken, if, upon a sub- 
sequent re-election of Mr Walpole, there 
had been any other candidate in competi- 
tion with him. For, by their vote, they 
could have no other intention than to admit 
such other candidate." Vide Mungo's case 
considered, p. 39. Or take it in this light. 
— The burgesses of Lynn, having, in de- 
fiance of the House, retorted upon them a 
person, whom they had branded with the 
most ignominious marks of their dis- 
pleasure, were thereby so well intitled to 
favour and indulgence, that the House 
could do no less than rob Mr Taylor of a 
right legally vested in him, in order that 

^ Sir W. Blackstone. 



the burgesses might be apprized of the law 
of parliament ; which law the House took 
a very direct way of explainmg to them, by 
resolving that the candidate with the fewest 
votes was not duly elected : — ' And was 
not this much more equitable, more in the 
spirit of that equal and substantial justice, 
which is the end of all law, than if they 
had violently adhered to the strict maxims 
of law ? " Vide Serious Considerations, p. 
33 and 34. ' And if the present H[ouse of 
Commons had chosen to follow the spirit 
of this resolution, they would have received 
and established the candidate with the 
fewest votes." Vide Atiswer to sir W. M., 
p. i3. 

Permit me now, Sir, to show you, that 
the worthy Dr Blackstone sometimes con- 
tradicts the ministry as well as himself. 
The speech wilhout-doors asserts, 2 p. 9, 
' That the legal effect of an incapacity, 
founded on a judicial determination of a 
competent court, is precisely the same as 
that of an incapacity created by act of par- 
liament." Now for the Doctor. — The law 
and the opinio?i of the judge are not always 
cotivertible terms, or one and the same 
thing ; since it sometimes may happen that 
the judge may mistake the law. Com- 
mentaries, Vol. L p. 71. 

The answer to sir W. M. asserts, page 
23, ' That the returning officer is not a 
judicial, but a purely ministerial officer. 
His return is no judicial act." — At 'em 
again. Doctor. The eheriff, in his judi- 
cial capacity, is to hear ajid determine 
causes of 40 shillings value and ujtder in 
his county court. He has also a judicial 
power i7t divers other civil cases. He is 
likeivise to decide the elections of knights of 
the shire (subject to the control of the 
House of Commons J, to judge of the quali- 
fication of voters, and to return such as he 
shall DETERMINE to be duly elected. Vide 
Commentaries, page 332, Vol. L 

What conclusion shall we draw from 
such facts, such arguments, and such con- 
tradictions ? I cannot express my opinion 

^ See an extract from this speech, inserted in 
the note to Letter XVII., p. 172. — Edit. 



LETTEkS OF JUHlUS. 



of the present ministry mote exactly than 
in the words of sir R. Steele, ' that we are 
governed by a set of drivellers, whose folly 
takes away all dignity from distress, and 
makes even calamity ridiculous.' i 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXIII.3 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 

My Lord, 19 Sept. 1769. 

You are so little accustomed to 
receive any marks of respect or esteem from 
the public,^ that if, in the following lines, a 
compliment or expression of applause should 
escape me, I fear you would consider it as 
a mockery of your established character, 
and perhaps an insult to your understand- 
ing. You have nice feelings, my Lord, if 
we may judge from your resentments. 
Cautious therefore of giving offence, where 
you have so little deserved it, I shall leave 

* In a pamphlet written by Steele upon the 
issue of the South-Sea incorporation, at the 
period when Walpole was just re-emerging from 
obscurity, to take a more decided and loftier 
management of public affairs. — Edit. 

^ In requesting the announcement of this 
letter, Junius says, ' I mean to make it worth 
printing.' Private Letter, No. 9.— Edit. 

3 The unpopular peace of 1763 was negotiated 
by the duke of Bedford, and gave rise to a 
variety of public commotions which at length 
broke out into acts of open insurrection among 
the Spital-fields weavers, who exclaimed that 
their trade was ruined by its commercial stipula- 
tions. The rumour became current that the 
French court had purchased this peace by bribes 
to the Princess Dowager of Wales, lord Bute, 
the duke of Bedford, and Mr Henry Fox, after- 
wards lord Holland : and such was its general 
belief that the House of Commons thought 
proper to appoint a committee to examine into 
its truth ; who traced it chiefly to a Dr Mus- 
grave, who nevertheless does not appear to have 
suffered from this libellous report, which, as he 
affirmed, he had brought home with him from 
Paris. The public disfavour with which the 
terms of the peace were received, produced a 
fresh disagreement between lord Bute and the 
duke of Bedford on his return home, and he re- 
signed the office of lord privy seal. Upon the 
death of lord Egremont, however, lord Bute 
found himself compelled once more to apply to 
the duke of Bedford for his interest, who, con- 
scious of his importance, exacted not only from 
lord Bute but from the king himself a submission 



the' illustration of your virtues to other 
hands. Your friends have a privilege to 
play upon the easiness of your temper, or 
possibly they are better acquainted with 
your good qualities than I am. You have 
done good by stealth. The rest is upon 
record. You have still left ample room for 
speculation, when panegyric is exhausted. 
You are indeed a very considerable man. 
The highest rank ; a splendid fortune ; 
and a name, glorious till it was yours, 
were sufficient to have supported you with 
meaner abilities than I think you possess. 
From the first you derived a constitutional 
claim to respect; from the second, a natural 
extensive authority ; — the last created a 
partial expectation of hereditary virtues. 
The use you have made of these uncommon 
advantages might have been more honour- 
able to yourself, but could not be more in- 
structive to mankind. We may trace it in 
the veneration of your country, the choice 
of your friends, and in the accomplishment 



to whatever terms he chose to impose. After the 
Regency Bill, which had been recommended in 
a speech from the throne in April, 1765, had 
passed both Houses, an attempt was made to 
change the administration, from a belief that this 
bill had not received their cordial support during 
its progress through parliament, but without 
success. It was upon this occasion that the duke 
of Bedford insisted upon the dismissal of lord 
Bute's brother, Mr Stuart Mackenzie, from his 
office, although Mackenzie had received his 
Majesty's solemn promise that he should pre- 
serve it for life ; that he recalled lord Northum- 
berland from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, 
and removed lord Holland from the Pay-office. 

Incapable of submitting to such severe treat- 
ment, his Majesty soon afterwards intreated the 
duke of Newcastle and lord Rockingham to 
rescue him from the Bedford party. They con- 
sented, and the duke was again dismissed with 
contumely. When his Majesty became disgusted, 
as he soon did, with this ministry also, lord Bute 
applied in the 'king's name to George Grenville 
for support, and the duke of Bedford, who was 
on terms of the closest friendship with him, once 
more strove to enter into the cabinet ; but on 
this occasion lord Bute had spirit enough to treat 
his offer with the utmost contempt. Lord 
Chatham was next applied to, who consented to 
take the lead ; and on his resignation, the duke 
of Grafton was made prime minister, who, to 
strengthen his own hands, re-introduced the 
duke of Bedford into the cabinet, without how- 
ever appointing him to any particular office. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



189 



of every sanguine hope, which the public 
might have conceived from the illustrious 
name of Russell. 

The eminence of your station gave you a 
commanding prospect of your duty. The 
road which led to honour, was open to your 
view. You could not lose it by mistake, 
and you had no temptation to depart from 
it by design. Compare the natural dignity 
and importance of the richest peer of Eng- 
land ; — the noble independence which he 
might have maintained in parliament, and 
the real interest and respect which he 
might have acquired, not only in parhament, 
but through the whole kingdom ; compare 
these glorious distinctions with the ambi- 
tion of holding a share in government, the 
emoluments of a place, the sale of a 
borough, or the purchase of a corporation; ^ 
and though you may not regret the virtues 
which create respect, you may see with 
anguish how much real importance and 
authority you have lost. Consider the 
character of an independent virtuous duke 
of Bedford ; imagine what he might be in 
this country, then reflect one moment upon 
what you are. If it be possible for me to 
withdraw my attention from the fact, I will 
tell you in theory what such a man might 
be. 

Conscious of his own weight and import- 
ance, his conduct in parliament would be 
directed by nothing but the constitutional 
duty of a peer. He would consider himself 
as a guardian of the laws. WiUing to sup- 
port the just measures of government, but 
determined to observe the conduct of the 
minister with suspicion, he would oppose 
the violence of faction with as much firm- 
ness as the encroachments of prerogative. 
He would be as httle capable of bargaining 
with the minister for places for himself, or 
his dependents, as of descending to mix 
himself in the intrigues of opposition. 
Whenever an important question called for 
his opinion in parliament, he would be 

^ See note, p. 190 — Edit. 
^ The duke had lately lost his only son, by a 
fall from his horse. 
3 At this interview, which passed at the house 



heard, by the most profligate minister, with 
deference and respect. His authority would 
either sanctify or disgrace the measures of 
government.— The people would look up to 
him as to their protector, and a virtuous 
prince would have one honest man in his 
dominions, in whose integrity and judgment 
he might safely confide. If it should be 
the will of Pjpvidence to afflict him with a 
domestic misfortune, ^ he would submit to 
the stroke with feehng, but not without 
dignity. He would consider the people as 
his children, and receive a generous heart- 
felt consolation, in the sympathizing tears 
and blessings of his country. 

Your Grace may probably discover some- 
thing more intelligible in the negative part 
of this illustrious character. The man I 
have described would never prostitute his 
dignity in parliament by an indecent vio- 
lence either in opposing or defending a 
minister. He would not at one moment 
rancorously persecute, at another basely 
cringe to, the favourite of his sovereign. 
After outraging the royal dignity with per- 
emptory conditions, little short of menace 
and hostility, he would never descend to the 
humihty of soliciting an interview ^ with the 
favourite, and of offering to recover, at any 
price, the honour of his friendship. Though 
deceived perhaps in his youth, he would 
not, through the course of a long life, have 
invariably chosen his friends from among 
the most profligate of mankind. His own 
honour would have forbidden him from 
mixing his private pleasures or conversation 
with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gla- 
diators, or buffoons. He would then have 
never felt, much less would he have sub- 
mitted to the humiliating, dishonest neces- 
sity of engaging in the interest and intrigues 
of his dependents, of supplying their vices, 
or relieving their beggary, at the expense of 
his country. He would not have betrayed 
such ignorance, or such contempt of the 
constitution, as openly to avow, in a court 



of the late lord Eglintoun, lord Bute told the 
duke that he was determined never to have any 
connexion with a man who had so basely be- 
trayed him. 



igo 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



of justice, the purchase and sale i of a 
borough. He would not have thought it 
consistent with his rank in the state, or 
even with his personal importance, to be 
the little tyrant of a little corporation.^ He 
would never have been insulted with 
virtues, which he had laboured to extin- 
guish, nor suffered the disgrace of a mortify- 
ing defeat, which has made him ridiculous 
and contemptible, even to the few by whom 
he was not detested. — I reverence the afflic- 
tions of a good man, — his sorrows are 
sacred. But how can we take part in the 
distresses of a man, whom we can neither 
love nor esteem ; or feel for a calamity of 
which he himself is insensible ? Where was 
the father's heart when he could look for 
or find an immediate consolation for the 
loss of an only son, in consultations and 
bargains for a place at court, and even in 
the misery of balloting at the India House! 
Admitting then that you have mistaken 
or deserted those honourable principles, 
which ought to have directed your con- 
duct ; admitting that you have as little 
claim to private affection as to public es- 
teem, let us see with what abihties, with 
what degree of judgment, you have carried 
your own system into execution. A great 
man, in the success and even in the magni- 

^ In an answer in Chancery, in a suit against 
him to recover a large sum paid him by a person, 
whom he had undertaken to return to parliament, 
for one of his Grace's boroughs. He was com- 
pelled to repay the money. 

^ Of Bedford, where the tyrant was held in 
such contempt and detestation, that in order to 
deliver themselves from him, they admitted a 
great number of strangers to the freedom. To 
make his defeat truly ridiculous, he tried his 
whole strength against Mr Home, and was 
beaten upon his own ground. — Author. 

This contest took place September 4th, 1769, 
on the election of mayor, baiUffs, and chamber- 
lains for the borough of Bedford. His Grace 
having in vain objected to the making of any 
new freemen, at length prevailed on the corpora- 
tion to allow some of his own particular friends 
to be put in nomination, when about twenty of 
them were made accordingly. The names of the 
freemen proposed to be elected on the popular 
side of the question, were then read, and were 
heard with profound silence by his Grace, till the 
name of yohn Home was pronounced, when the 
duke expressed himself witii great bitterness 
towards that gentleman in particular ; the cor- 



tude of his crimes, finds a rescue from con- 
tempt. Your Grace is every way unfor- 
tunate. Yet I will not look back to those 
ridiculous scenes, by which in your earlier 
days you thought it an honour to be dis- 
tinguished ; the recorded stripes," the pub- 
lic infamy, your own sufferings, , or Mr 
Rigby's fortitude. These events undoubt- 
edly left an impression, though not upon 
your mind. To such a mind, it may per- 
haps be a pleasure to reflect, that there is 
hardly a corner of any of his IVIajesty's 
kingdoms, except France, in which, at one 
time or other, your valuable life has not 
been in danger. Amiable man ! we see 
and acknowledge the protection of Provid- 
ence, by which you have so often escaped 
the personal detestation of your fellow-sub- 
jects, and are still reserved for the public 
justice of your country. 

Your history begins to be important at 
that auspicious period at which you were 
deputed to represent the earl of Bute, at the 
court of Versailles. It was an honourable 
office, and executed with the same spirit 
with which it was accepted. Your patrons 
wanted an ambassador, who would submit 
to make concessions, without daring to 
insist upon any honourable condition for his 
sovereign.* Their business required a man, 

poration however divided upon the point, and 
Mr Home was elected, there being seventeen 
votes in his favour and eleven against him. The 
candidates for the office of mayor were on the 
popular side Mr Cawne, and on the part of the 
duke of Bedford, Mr Richards, the former of 
whom was elected by 458 votes against 26. The 
triumph over his Grace was of course complete. — 
Edit. 

3 Mr Heston Homphrey, a country attorney, 
horsewhipped the duke with equal justice, 
severity, and perseverance, on the course at 
Litchfield. Rigby and lord Tretitham were also 
cudgelled iii a most exemplary manner. This 
gave rise to the following story : * When the late 
king heard that sir Edward Hawke had given 
the French a driibbmg, his Majesty, who had 
never received that kind of chastisement, was 
pleased to ask lord Chesterfield the meaning of 
the word. Sir, says lord Chesterfield, the 
meaning of the word — but here comes the duke 
of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to 
your Majesty than I am.' 

4 Soon after the death of the duke of Bedford 
the following paragraph was inserted in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, and as it remained uncontradicted. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



TQI 



who had as little feeling for his own dignity 
as for the welfare of his country ; and they 
found him in the first rank of the nobihty. 
Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St Lucia, 
Martinique, the Fishery, and the Havanna, 
are glorious monuments of your Grace's 
talents for negotiation.^ My Lord, we are 
too well acquainted with your pecuniary 
character, to think it possible that so many 
pubhc sacrifices should have been made, 
without some private compensations. Your 
conduct carries with it an internal evidence, 
beyond all the legal proofs of a court of 
justice. Even the callous pride of lord 
Egremont was alarmed. 2 He saw and 
felt his own dishonour in corresponding 
with you ; and there certainly was a moment, 
at which he meant to have resisted, had not 
a fatal lethargy prevailed over his faculties , 
and carried all sense and memory away with 
it. 



there is some reason to believe it authentic. As 
the duke in this letter is arraigned in the most 
severe terms for the concessions made in negoti- 
ating the peace of 1763, it is but justice to his 
Grace, that a circumstance so honourable should 
be more generally known. The paragraph runs 
thus : 

' The following anecdote of the late duke of 
Bedford may be depended upon as fact : — When 
his Grace negotiated the late peace at Paris, he 
signed the preHminaries with the French minister 
Choiseul, and stipulated no farther for the pos- 
sessions of the East India Company than he was 
advised to stipulate by the court of directors. A 
gentleman (a Dutch Jew of great abilities and 
character), hearing this, wrote a letter to the 
duke of Bedford, informing him that the English 
East India Company had materially neglected 
their own interest, as their chief conquests were 
made subsequent to the period at which they had 
fixed their claim of sovereignty ; and if these 
latter conquests were to be restored, an immense 
annual revenue would necessarily be taken from 
England. The duke, struck with the force of 
the fact, yet embarrassed how to act, as pre- 
liminaries were really signed, repaired to Choi- 
seul at Versailles, and addressed him thus : ' My 
Lord, I have committed a great mistake in sign- 
ing the preliminaries, as the affair of the India 
possessions mast be carried down to our last con- 
quest in Asia.' To this Choiseul replied, 'Your 
Grace astonishes me ; I thought I had been 
treating with the minister of a great nation, and 
not with a student in politics, who does not 
consider the validity of written engagements.' 
'Your reproach, my Lord, is just,' returned the 
duke, ' but I will not add treachery to negli- 
gence, nor betray my country deliberately. 



I will not pretend to specify the secret 
terms on which you were invited to support 
an administration 3 which Lord Bute pre- 
tended to leave in full possession of their 
ministerial authority, and perfectly masters 
of themselves. He was not of a temper to 
relinquish power, though he retired from 
employment. Stipulations were certainly 
made between your Grace and him, and 
certainly violated. After two years* sub- 
mission, you thought you had collected a 
strength sufficient to controul his influence, 
and that it was your turn to be a tyrant, 
because you had been a slave. When you 
found yourself mistaken in your opinion of 
your gracious Master's firmness, disappoint- 
ment got the better of all your humble 
discretion, and carried you to an excess of 
outrage to his person, as distant from true 
spirit, as from all decency and respect.-* 
After robbing him of the rights of a king, 



because I have overlooked her interest unac- 
countably in a single circumstance ; therefore, 
unless j'our Lordship agrees to cede the latter con- 
quests in India, I shall return home in twelve 
hours, and submit the fate of my head to the 
discretion of an English parliament.' Choiseul, 
staggered at the duke's intrepidity, complied ; and 
this country now enjoys above half a million 
annually through the firmness of a man, whom it 
is even patriotism at present to calumniate, but 
whose virtues have never yet received justice 
from the community. On the termination of the 
affair to his satisfaction, he gave his informant, 
the Dutch gentleman, the warmest recommenda- 
tions to England, who accordingly came over, 
and receives at this moment a pension of ;^5oo 
a year froni the India Company as a reward for 
his services.' — Edit. 

^ The peace of 1763 was negotiated by his 
Grace of Bedford ; the conquests here specified 
were relinquished by its conditions : and the 
rumour, as already observed, was in general cir- 
culation that the duke and his friends had been 
bribed into so prodigal a surrender. See the 
note in p. 188. — Edit. • 

^ This man, notwithstanding his pride and 
Tory principles, had some English stuff in him. 
Upon an official letter he wrote to the duke of 
Bedford, the duke desired to be recalled, and it 
was with the utmost difficulty that lord Bute 
could appease him. 

3 Mr Grenville, lord Halifax, and lord Egre- 
mont. 

4 The ministry having endeavoured to exclude 
the Dowager out of the regency bill, the earl of 
Bute determined to dismiss them. Upon this the 
duke of Bedford demanded an audience of the 
king, reproached him in plain terms, with his 



192 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



you would not permit him to preserve the 
honour of a gentleman. It was then lord 
Weymouth was nominated to Ireland, and 
despatched (we well remember with what 
indecent hurry) to plunder the treasury of 
the first fruits of an employment which you 
well knew he was never to execute. 1 

This sudden declaration of war against 
the favourite might have given you a 
momentary merit with the pubhc, if it had 
either been adopted upon principle, or 
maintained with resolution. Without look- 
ing back to all your former servihty, we 
need only observe your subsequent conduct, 
to see upon what motives you acted. Ap- 
parently united with Mr Grenville, you 
waited until lord Rockingham's feeble 
administration should dissolve in its own 
weakness. — The moment their dismission 
was suspected, the moment you perceived 
that another system was adopted in the 
closet, you thought it no disgrace to return 
to your former dependence, and solicit once 
more the friendship of lord Bute. You 
begged an interview, at which he had 
spirit enough to treat you with contempt. 

It would now be of little use to point out, 
by what a train of weak, injudicious mea- 
sures it became necessary, or was thought 
so, to call you back to a share in the 
administration.2 The friends, whom you 
did not in the last instance desert, were not 
of a character to add strength or credit to 
government ; and at that time your alliance 
with the duke of Grafton was. I presume, 
hardly foreseen. We must look for other 
stipulations, to account for that sudden 
resolution of the closet, by which three of 
your dependants 3 (whose characters, I 
think, cannot be less respected than they 
are) were advanced to offices, through 
which you might again controul the 
minister, and probably engross the whole 
direction of affairs. 

The possession of absolute power is now 
once more within your reach. The mea- 



duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, and 
hypocrisy, — repeatedly gave him the lie, and left 
him in convulsions. 

^ He received three thousand pounds for plate 
and equipage money. 



sures you have taken to obtain and confirm 
it, are too gross to escape the eyes of a 
discerning judicious prince. His palace is 
besieged ; the lines of circumvallation are 
drawing round him ; and unless he finds a 
resource in his own activity, or in the 
attachment of the real friends of his family, 
the best of princes must submit to the con- 
finement of a state prisoner, until your 
Grace's death, or some less fortunate event, 
shall raise the siege. For the present, you 
may safely resume that style of insult and 
menace, which even a private gentleman 
cannot submit to hear without being con- 
temptible. Mr Mackenzie's history is not 
yet forgotten, and you may find precedents 
enough of the mode, in which an imperious 
subject may signify his pleasure to his 
sovereign. Where will this gracious mon- 
arch look for assistance, when the wretched 
Grafton could forget his obligations to his 
master, and desert him for a hollow alli- 
ance with such a man as the duke of Bed- 
ford ! 

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at 
the summit of worldly greatness ; let us 
suppose, that all your plans of avarice and 
ambition are accomplished, and your most 
sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well 
as the hatred of the people : Can age itself 
forget that you are now in the last act of 
life ? Can grey hairs make folly venerable ? 
and is there no period to be reserved for 
meditation and retirement ? For shame ! 
my Lord : let it not be recorded of you, 
that the latest moments of your life were 
dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, 
the same busy agitations, in which your 
youth and manhood were exhausted. Con- 
sider, that, although you cannot disgrace 
your former hfe, you are violating the cha- 
racter of age, and exposing the impotent 
imbecility, after you have lost the vigour of 
the passions. 

Your friends will ask, perhaps, Wlnther 
shall this unhappy old man retire ? Can he 

^ When earl Gower was appointed president 
of the council, the king, with his usual sincerity, 
assured him, that he had not had one happy 
moment since the duke of Bedford left him. 

3 Lords Gower, Weymouth, and Sandwich. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



193 



remain in the metropolis, where his hfe has 
been so often threatened, and his palace so 
often attacked? If he returns to Wooburn, 
scorn and mockery await him. He must 
create a solitude round his estate, if he 
would avoid the face of reproach and 
derision. At Plymouth, his destruction 
would be more than probable ; at Exeter, 
inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever 
forget his attachment, nor any honest 
Scotchman forgive his treachery, to lord 
Bute. At every town he enters, he must 
change his liveries and his name. Which 
ever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of the 
country pursues him. 

In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings 
of his administration have been more 
sensibly felt ; his virtues better understood ; 
or at worst, they will not, for him alone, 
forget their hospitality. — As well might 
Verres have returned to Sicily. You have 
twice escaped, my Lord ; beware of a third 
experiment. The indignation of a whole 
people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed 
as they have been, will not always be dis- 
appointed. 

It is in vain therefore to shift the scene. 
You can no more fly from your enemies 
than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, 
you look into your own heart for consola- 
tion, and find nothing but reproaches and 
despair. But, my Lord, you may quit the 
field of business, though not the field of 
danger ; and though you cannot be safe, 
you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you 
have listened too long to the advice of those 
pernicious friends, with whose interests you 
have sordidly united your own, and for 
whom you have sacrificed every thing that 
ought to be dear to a man of honour. 
They are still base enough to encourage 
the follies of your age, as they once did the 
vices of your youth. As little acquainted 



^ As some apprehension was entertained by 
the printer, that he might be brought before the 
House of Lords, for inserting this letter in his 
paper, Junius wrote to him in Private Letter, 
No. 10, as follows : — ' As to ^^7^, it is clearly my 
opinion that you have nothing to fear from the 
duke of Bedford. I reserve some things ex- 
pressly to awe him, in case he should think of 



with the rules of decorum, as with the laws 
of morality, they will not suffer you to profit 
by experience, nor even to consult the pro- 
priety of a bad character. Even now they 
tell you, that life is no more than a dra- 
matic scene, in which the hero should pre- 
serve his consistency to the last, and that as 
you hved without virtue, you should die 
without repentance.! 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXIV. 



Sir, 



TO JUNIUS. 

14 September, 1769. 
Having accidentally seen a re- 
publication of your letters, wherein you have 
been pleased to assert, that I had sold the 
companions of my success ; I am again 
obliged to declare the said assertion to be a 
most infamous and malicious falsehood ; 
and I again call upon you to stand forth, 
avow yourself, and prove the charge. If 
you can make it out to the satisfaction of 
any one man in the kingdom, I will be con- 
tent to be thought the worst man in it ; if 
you do not, what must the nation think of 
you? Party has nothing to do in this 
affair : you have made a personal attack 
upon my honour, defamed me by a most 
vile calumny, which might possibly have 
sunk into oblivion, had not such uncommon 
pains been taken to renew and perpetuate 
this scandal,2 chiefly because it has been 
told in good language : for I give you full 
credit for your elegant diction, well turned 
periods, and attic wit ; but wit is often- 
times false, though it may appear brilliant ; 
which is exactly the case of your whole per- 
formance. But, Sir, I am obliged in the 
most serious manner to accuse you of being 
guilty oi falsities. You have said the thing 



bringing you before the House of Lords. I am 
sure I can threaten him privately with such a 
storm, as would make him tremble even in his 
grave.' See also p. 199. — Edit. 

^ The reader will perceive, by a reference to 
Private Letter, No. 4, that this republication 
was without the author's knowledge or consent. 
— Edit. 

13 



194 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



that is not. To support your story, you 
have recourse to the following irresistible 
argument : ' You sold the companions of 
your victory, because when the i6th regi- 
ment was given to you, you was silent. 
The conclusion is inevitable.' I believe 
that such deep and acute reasoning could 
only come from such an extraordinary 
writer as Junius. But unfortunately for 
you, the premises as \^11 as the conclusion 
are absolutely false. Many applications 
have been made to the ministry on the sub- 
ject of the Manilla ransom since the time of 
my being colonel of that regiment. As I 
have for some years quitted London, T was 
obliged to have recourse to the honourable 
colonel Monson and sir Samuel Cornish, i 
to negotiate for me ; in the last autumn, I 
personally delivered a memorial to the earl 
of Shelburne at his seat in Wiltshire. As 
you have told us of your importance, that 
you are a person of rank a.n(l fortune, and 
above a common bribe, 2 you may in all pro- 
bability be not unknowji to his Lordship, 
who can satisfy you of the truth of what I 
say. But I shall now take the liberty, Sir, 
to seize your battery, and turn it against 
yourself. If your puerile and tinsel logic 
could carry the least weight or conviction 
with it, how must you stand affected by the 
inevitable conclusion, as you are pleased to 
term it? According to Junius, silence is 
guilt. In many of the public papers, you 
have been called in the most direct and 
offensive terms a liar and a coward. When 
did you reply to these foul accusations? 
you have been quite silent ; quite chop- 
fallen : therefore, because you was silent, 
the nation has a right to pronounce you to 
be both a liar and a coward from your own 
argument : but, Sir, I will give you fairer 
play ; will afford you an opportunity to 
wipe off the first appellation ; by desiring 
the proofs of your charge against me. Pro- 
duce them ! To wipe off the last, produce 



^ These gentlemen accompanied sir William 
as brother officers in his expedition against the 
Philippines. — Edit. 

- See Miscellaneous Letter of the author. No. 
LIV.— Edit. 



yourself People cannot bear any longer 
your lion s skin, and the despicable impos- 
ture of the old Roman name which you 
have affected. For the future assume the 
name of some modern ^ bravo and dark 
assassin : let your appellation have some 
affinity to your practice. But if I must 
perish^ JUNIUS, let me perish in the face of 
day ; be for once a generous and open 
enemy. I allow that Gothic appeals to cold 
iron are no better proofs of a man's honesty 
and veracity, than hot iron and burning 
ploughshares are oi female chastity : but a 
soldier's honour is as delicate as a woman's ; 
it must not be suspected ; you have dared 
to throw more than a suspicion upon mine : 
you cannot but know the consequences, 
which even the meekness of Christianity 
would pardon me for, after the injury you 
have done me. 

WILLIAM DRAPER. 



LETTER XXV. 
HcBret lateri leihalis arundo. 

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, K. B. 

Sir, 25 September, 1769. 

After so long an interval, I did 
not expect to see the debate revived between 
us. My answer to your last letter shall be 
short ; for I write to you with reluctance, 
and I hope we shall now conclude our 
correspondence for ever. 

Had you been originally and without 
provocation attacked by an anonymous 
writer, you would have some right to 
demand his name. But in this cause you are 
a volunteer. You engaged in it with the 
unpremeditated gallantry of a soldier. You 
were content to set your name in opposition 
to a man, who would probably continue in 
concealment. You understood the terms 
upon which we were to correspond, and 
gave at least a tacit assent to them. After 
voluntarily attacking me under the character 
of Junius, what possible right have you to 



3 Was Brutus an ancient bravo and dark 
assassin ? or does sir W. D. think it criminal to 
stab a tyrant to the heart ? 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



195 



know me under any other ? Will you for- 
give me if I insinuate to you, that you 
foresaw some honour in the apparent spirit 
of coming forward in person, and that you 
were not quite indifferent to the display of 
your literary qualifications ? 

You cannot but know that the republica- 
tion of my letters was no more than a 
catchpenny contrivance of a printer, in 
which it was impossible I should be con- 
cerned, and for which I am no way answer- 
able. At the same time I wish you to 
understand, that if I do not take the trouble 
of reprinting these papers, it is not from any 
fear of giving offence to sir WiUiam Draper. 

Your remarks upon a signature, adopted 
merely for distinction, are unworthy of 
notice ; but when you tell me I have sub- 
mitted to be called a liar and a coward, I 
must ask you in my turn, whether you seri- 
ously think it any way incumbent upon me 
to take notice of the silly invectives of every 
simpleton, who writes in a newspaper ; and 
what opinion you would have conceived of 
my discretion, if I had suffered myself to be 
the dupe of so shallow an artifice ? 

Your appeal to the sword, though con- 
sistent enough with your late profession, 
will neither prove your innocence nor clear 

you from suspicion. Your complaints 

with regard to the Manilla ransom were, 
for a considerable time, a distress to go- 
vernment. You were appointed (greatly 
out of your turn) to the command of a 
regiment, and during that administration 
we heard no more of sir William Draper. 
The facts, of which I speak, may indeed be 
variously accounted for, but they are too 
notorious to be denied ; and I think you 
might have learnt at the university, that a 
false conclusion is an error in argument, 
not a breach of veracity. Your solicita- 
tions, I doubt not, were renewed under 
another administration. Admitting the 
fact, I fear an indifferent person would only 
infer from it, that experience had made you 
acquainted with the benefits of complain- 
ing. Remember, Sir, that you have your- 
self confessed, that, considering the critical 
situation of this country, the ministry are 



in the right to temporize with Spain. This 
confession reduces you to an unfortunate 
dilemma. By renewing your soUcitations, 
you must either mean to force your country 
into a war at a most unseasonable juncture ; 
or, having no view or expectation of that 
kind, that you look for nothing but a 
private compensation to yourself. 

As to me, it is by no means necessary 
that I should be exposed to the resentment 
of the worst and the most powerful men in 
this country,! though I may be indifferent 
about yours. Though you would fight, 
there are others who would assassinate. 

But after all, Sir, where is the injury? 
You assure me, that my logic is puerile and 
tinsel ; that it carries not the least weight or 
conviction ; that my premises are false and 
my conclusions absurd. If this be a just 
description of me, how is it possible for such 
a writer to disturb your peace of mind, or 
to injure a character so well established as 
yours ? Take care, sir William, how you 
indulge this unruly temper, lest the world 
should suspect that conscience has some 
share in your resentments. You have more 
to fear from the treachery of your own pas- 
sions, than from any malevolence of mine. 

I believe. Sir, you will never know me. 
A considerable time must certainly elapse 
before we are personally acquainted. You 
need not, however, regret the delay, or 
suffer an apprehension that any length of 
time can restore you to the Christian meek- 
ness of your temper, and disappoint your 
present indignation. If I understand your 
character, there is in your own breast a re- 
pository, in which your resentments may be 
safely laid up for future occasions, and pre- 
served without the hazard of diminution. 
The Odia in longum jaciens, qucB reconde- 
ret, auctaque promeret, I thought had only 
belonged to the worst character of antiquity. 
The text is in Tacitus ; — you know best 
where to look for the commentary. 

JUNIUS. 



^ See Private Letter, No. 41, in which he 
continues to entertain some apprehensions con- 
cerning the effects of a discovery of his person. 
— Edit. 



196 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXVL 

A WORD AT PARTING TO JUNIUS. 

1 Sir, 7 October, 1769. 

As you have not favoured me with 
either of the explanations demanded of 
you, I can have nothing more to say to you 
upon my own account. Your mercy to me, 
or tenderness for yourself, has been very 
great. The public will judge of your 
motives. If your excess of modesty forbids 
you to produce either the proofs of your- 
self, I will excuse it. Take courage ; I 
have not the temper of Tiberius, any more 
than the rank or power. You, indeed, are 
a tyrant of another sort, and upon your 
political bed of torture can excruciate any 
subject, from a first minister down to such 
a grub or butterfly as myself ; like another 
detested tyrant of antiquity, can make the 
wretched sufferer fit the bed, if the bed will 
not fit the sufferer, by disjointing or tearing 
the trembling limbs until they are stretched 
to its extremity. But courage, constancy, 
and patience, under torments, have some- 
times caused the most hardened monsters to. 
relent, and forgive the object of their cruelty. 
You, Sir, are determined to try all that 
human nature can endure, until she ex- 
pires : else, was it possible that you could 
be the author of that most inhuman letter 
to the duke of Bedford ? I have read it with 
astonishment and horror. Where, Sir, 
where were the feelings of your own heart, 
when you could upbraid a most affectionate 
father with the loss of his only and most 
amiable son ? Read over again those cruel 
lines of yours, and let them wring your very 
soul ! Cannot political questions be dis- 



^ Measures and not men is the common cant 
of affected moderation ; — a base, counterfeit 
language, fabricated by knaves, and made 
current among fools. Such gentle censure is 
not fitted to the present degenerate state of 
society. What does it avail to expose the ab- 
surd contrivance, or pernicious tendency, of 
measures, if the man who advises or executes, 
shall be suffered not only to escape with impunity, 
but even to preserve his power, and insult us 
with the favour of his sovereign ! I would re- 
commend to the reader the whole of Mr Pope's 



cussed without descending to the most 
odious personalities ? Must you go wan- 
tonly out of your way to torment declining 
age, because the duke of Bedford may have 
quarrelled with those whose cause and 
poHtics you espouse ? For shame ! for 
shame ! As you have spoke daggers to him, 
you may justly dread the use of them against 
your own breast, did a want of courage, or 
of noble sentiments, stimulate him to such 
mean revenge. He is above it ; he is brave. 
Do you fancy that your own base arts have 
infected our whole island ? But your own 
reflections, your own conscience, must and 
will, if you have any spark of humanity 
remaining, give him most ample vengeance. 
Not all the power of words with which you 
are so graced, will ever wash out, or even 
palliate, this foul blot in your character. I 
have not time at present to dissect your 
letter so minutely as I could wish, but I will 
be bold enough to say, that it is (as to 
reason and argument) the most extraordin- 
ary piece oi florid impotence that was ever 
imposed upon the eyes and ears of the too 
credulous and deluded mob. It accuses the 
duke of Bedford of high treason. Upon 
what foundation ? You tell us, ' that the 
duke's pecuniary character makes it more 
than probable, that he could not have made 
such sacrifices at the peace, without some 
private compensations ; that his conduct 
carried with it an interior evidence, beyond 
all the legal proofs of a court of justice.' 

My academical education. Sir, bids me 
tell you that it is necessary to establish the 
truth of your first proposition, before you 
presume to draw inferences from it. First 
prove the avarice, before you make the 
rash, hasty, and most wicked conclusion. 



letter to Doctor Arbuthnot, dated 26 July, 1734, 
from which the following is an extract. _' To re- 
form and not to chastise I am afraid is impossi- 
ble ; and that the best precepts, as well as the 
best laws, would prove of small use, if there 
were no examples to enforce them. To attack 
vices in the abstract, without touching persons, 
may be safe fighting indeed, but it is fighting 
with shadows. My greatest comfort and en- 
couragement to proceed, has been, to see that 
those who have no shame, and no fear of any 
thing else, have appeared touched by my satires.' 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



197 



This father, Junius, whom you call avari- 
cious, allowed that son eight thousand 
pounds a year. Upon his most unfortunate 
death, which your usual good nature took 
care to remind him of, he greatly increased 
the jointure of the afflicted lady, his widow. 
Is this avarice? Is this doing good by 
stealth f It is upon record. 

If exact order, method, and true economy 
as a master of a family ; if splendour and 
just magnificence, without wild waste and 
thoughtless extravagance ; may constitute 
the character of an avaricious man, the 
duke is guilty. But for a moment let us 
admit that an ambassador may love money 
too much ; what proof do you give that he 
has taken any to betray his country ? Is it 
hearsay ; or the evidence of letters, or ocu- 
lar ; or the evidence of those concerned in 
this black affair? Produce yoar authorities 
to the public. It is a most impudent kind 
of sorcery to attempt to bhnd us with the 
smoke, without convincing us that the fire 
has existed. You first brand him with a 
vice that he is free from, to render him 
odious and suspected. Suspicion is the 
foul weapon with which you make all your 
chief attacks ; with that you stab. But 
shall one of the first subjects of the realm 
be ruined in his fame, shall even his Hfe be 
in constant danger, from a charge built 
upon such sandy foundations? Must his 
house be besieged by lawless ruffians, his 
journies impeded, and even the asylum 
of an altar be insecure, from assertions 
so base and false? Potent as he is, the 
duke is amenable to justice ; if guilty, 
punishable. The parliament is the high 
and solemn tribunal for matters of such 
great moment. To that be they submitted. 
But I hope also that some notice will be 
taken of, and some punishment inflicted 
upon, false accusers, especially upon such, 
Junius, who are wilfully false. In any 
truth I will agree even with Junius ; will 
agree with him that it is highly unbecom- 
ing the dignity of peers to tamper with 

^ Sir William gives us a pleasant account of 
men, who, in his opinion at least, are the best 
qualified to govern an empire. 



boroughs. Aristocracy is as fatal as demo- 
cracy. Our constitution admits of neither. 
It loves a King, Lords, and Commons 
really chosen by the unbought suffrages of 
a free people. But if corruption only shifts 
hands ; if the wealthy commoner gives the 
bribe, instead of the potent peer, is the 
state better served by this exchange? Is 
the real emancipation of the borough 
effected, because new parchment bonds 
may possibly supersede the old? To say 
the truth, wherever such practices prevail, 
they are equally criminal to and destructive 
of our freedom. 

The rest of your declamation is .scarce 
worth considering, excepting for the ele- 
gance of the language. Like Hamlet in the 
play, you produce two pictures : you tell 
us, that one is not like the duke of Bedford; 
then you bring a most hideous caricature, 
and tell us of the resemblance ; but multum 
abludit imago. 

All your long tedious accounts of the 
ministerial quarrels, and the intrigues of the 
cabinet, are reducible to a few short lines ; 
and to convince you. Sir, that I do not 
mean to flatter any minister, either past or 
present, these are my thoughts : they seem 
to have acted like lovers, or children ; have 
pouted, quarrelled, cried, kissed, and been 
friends again, ^ as the objects of desire, the 
ministerial rattles, have been put into their 
hands. But such proceedings are very un- 
worthy of the gravity and dignity of a great 
nation. We do not want men of abilities ; 
but we have wanted steadiness ; we want 
unanimity : your letters, Junius, will not 
contribute thereto. You may one day ex- 
pire by a flame of your own kindling. But 
it is my humble opinion that lenity and 
moderation, pardon and oblivion, will dis- 
appoint the efforts of all the seditious in the 
land, and extinguish their wide-spreading 
fires. I have lived with this sentiment ; 
with this I shall die. 

WILLIAM DRAPER.2 



^ A few da^'s subsequent to the publication of 
this letter, a report was circulated, that sir 
William Draper, in consequence of his defence 
of lord Granb}', had been appointed to a govern- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXVIL 

TO TI-IE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 13 October, 1769. 

If sir William Draper's bed be a 
bed of torture, he has made it for himself. 
I shall never interrupt his repose. Having 
changed the subject, there are parts of his 
last letter not undeserving of a reply. Leav- 
ing his private character and conduct out of 
the question, I shall consider him merely 
in the capacity of an author, whose labours 
certainly do no discredit to a newspaper. 

We say, in common discourse, that a man 
may be his own enemy, and the frequency 
of the fact makes the expression intelligible. 
But that a man should be the bitterest 
enemy of his friends, implies a contradic- 
tion of a peculiar nature ! There is some- 
thing in it which cannot be conceived 
without a confusion of ideas, nor expressed 
without a solecism in language. Sir 
WiUiam Draper is still that fatal friend lord 
Granby found him. Yet I am ready to do 
justice to his generosity ; if indeed it be not 
something more than generous, to be the 
voluntary advocate of men, who think 
themselves injured by his assistance, and to 
consider nothing in the cause he adopts, 
but the difficulty of defending it. I thought 
however he had been better read in the 
history of the human heart, than to com- 
pare or confound the tortures of the body 
with those of the mind. He ought to have 
known, though perhaps it might not be his 
interest to confess, that no outward tyranny 
can reach the mind. If conscience plays 
the tyrant, it would be greatly for the bene- 
fit of the world that she were more arbi- 
trary, and far less placable, than some men 
find her. 

orship in America, which sir William contra- 
dicted, in the following short note, addressed to 
the Printer of the Public Advertiser, Oct. 20, 
1769. 

'Sir, 

' You are desired to contradict the re- 
port that sir William Draper is appointed a 



But it seems I have outraged the feelings 
of a father's heart. — Am I indeed so in- 
judicious? Does sir William Draper think 
I would have hazarded my credit with a 
generous nation, by so gross a violation of 
the laws of humanity ? Does he think I 
am so little acquainted with the first and 
noblest characteristic of Englishmen ? Or 
how will he reconcile such folly with an 
understanding so full of artifice as mine ? 
Had he been a father, he would have been 
but little oifended with the severity of the 
reproach, for his mind would have been 
filled with the justice of it. He would have 
seen that I did not insult the feelings of a 
father, but the father who felt nothing. 
He would have trusted to the evidence of 
his own paternal heart, and boldly denied 
the possibility of the fact, instead of de- 
fending it. Against whom then will his 
honest indignation be directed, when I 
assure him, that this whole town beheld the 
duke of Bedford's conduct, upon the death 
of his son, with horror and astonishment. 
Sir William Draper does himself but little 
honour in opposing the general sense of 
his country. The people are seldom wrong 
in their opinions ; — in their sentiments they 
are never mistaken. There may be a vanity 
perhaps in a singular way of thinking ; — 
but when a man professes a want of those 
feelings, which do honour to the multitude, 
he hazards something infinitely more im- 
portant than the character of his under- 
standing. After all, as sir William may 
possibly be in earnest in his anxiety for the 
duke of Bedford, I should be glad to 
relieve him from it. He may rest assured 
that this worthy nobleman laughs, with 
equal indifference, at my reproaches, and 
sir William's distress about him. But here 
let it stop. Even the duke of Bedford, in- 
sensible as he is, will consult the tranquillity 



governor in America. The story has been 
raised to make the public believe that he has 
endeavoured to vindicate those whom he knows 
to have been most infamously traduced for the 
sake of a reward. His motive for this voyage is 
entirely curiosity. He has nothing ito do with 
the politics of this ministry, or any other set of 
men whosoever.' — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



199 



of his life, in not provoking the moderation 
of my temper. If, from the profoundest 
contempt, I should ever rise into anger, he 
should soon find, that all I have already- 
said of him was lenity and compassion. 1 

Out of a long catalogue, sir William 
Draper has confined himself to the refuta- 
tion of two charges only. The rest he had 
not time to discuss ; and indeed it would 
have been a laborious undertaking. To 
draw up a defence of such a series of 
enormities, would have required a life at 
least as long as that which has been uni- 
formly employed in the practice of them. 
The public opinion of the duke of Bedford's 
extreme economy is, it seems, entirely with- 
out foundation. Though not very prodigal 
abroad, in his own family, at least, he is 
regular and magnificent. He pays his 



^ See Private Letter, No. 10. 

^ This gentleman is supposed to have the 
same idea of bhtshing, that a man blind from his 
birth has of scarlet or sky-blue. 

3 In answer to this heavy charge, two instances 
of the noble duke's benevolence were brought 
forward in two separate letters in the Public 
Advertiser. The one dated Oct. 17, and signed 
Frances, which states his having relieved with a 
patent employment, the husband of the writer of 
a series of sentimental letters of ' Henry and 
Frances,' in which the author, a Mrs Griffiths, 
fictitiously depicted their own real distress. The 
other dated Oct. 20, and signed Jere. Mears, 
lieut. of the 29th regt. relates the duke's gener- 
ous and unsolicited bestowment upon him of a 
pair of colours, upon a knowledge, when lord- 
lieutenant of Ireland, of the writer's destitute 
situation. 

A much abler reply to JuNius's severe attack 
upon his Grace was afterwards introduced into 
the Public Advertiser in a letter to Junius sub- 
scribed M. Tullius, dated Dec. 8, from which 
the editor feels bound, on the score of impar- 
tiality, to make the following extract : 

' In these strictures I have principally in view 
the treatment which Junius, in two pubHcations, 
has thought proper to offer to the duke of Bed- 
ford. His animadversions on this ilkistrious 
nobleman are intended to reflect both on his 
public and private character. With regard to 
the first of these, nothing of consequence is 
urged besides his Grace's conduct as ambas- 
sador at the court of Versailles in the mak- 
ing of the late peace. I mean not to enter 
here into the merits or demerits of that import- 
ant transaction. Thus much is known to all, 

the riches of the nation were at that time well 
nigh exhausted, public credit was on the brink 
of ruin, the national debt increased to such an 
enormous height as to threaten us with a sudden 



debts, abhors a beggar, and makes a hand- 
some provision for his son. His charity 
has improved upon the proverb, and ended 
where it began. Admitting the whole force 
of this single instance of his domestic gen- 
erosity (wonderful indeed, considering the 
narrowness of his fortune, and the httle 
merit of his only son), the public may still 
perhaps be dissatisfied, and demand some 
other less equivocal proofs of his munifi- 
cence. Sir William Draper should have 
entered boldly into the detail — of indigence 
relieved — of arts encouraged — of science 
patronized ; men of learning protected, and 
works of genius rewarded ; in short, had 
there been a single instance, besides Mr 
Rigby,2 of blushing merit brought for\vard 
by the duke, for the service of the public, 
it should not have been omitted. ^ 

and universal crush ; and whatever be said of 
the concessions that were made to bring that 
memorable event to bear, Canada, among other 
instances, will ever remain a glorious monument ; 
the interests of this kingdom were not forgotten 
in that negotiation: But Junius, hackneyed in 
the tricks of controversy, where a man's open 
and avowed actions are innocent, has the art to 
hint at secret terms and private compensations ; 
and though he is compelled by the force of truth 
to own 'no document of any treasonable prac- 
tice is to be found,' we are given plainly to un- 
derstand, so many public sacrifices were not 
made at that period without a valuable con- 
sideration, and that in practice there is very Uttle 
difference in the ceremony of offering a bribe, 
and of that duke's accepting it. To a charge 
that is alledged, not only without proof, but even 
with a confession that no proof is to be expected, 
no answer is to be returned but that of a con- 
temptuous silence. When a writer takes upon 
him to attack the character of a nobleman of the 
highest rank, and in a matter of so capital a 
nature as that of selling his country for a bribe, 
common policy, as well as prudence, require 
that an accusation of such importance be sup- 
ported with at least some show of evidence, and 
that even this be not done but with the utmost 
moderation of temper and expression : but so 
sober a conduct would have been beside the 
purpose of Junius, whose business it was not to 
reason, but rail. The Roman rhetorician, among 
the other arts of oratory, mentions one, which he 
dignifies with the title of a "Canine eloquence," 
that of fining up the empty places of an argu- 
ment with raiUngs, convitiis implere vacua can- 
sar7-(m. In the knowledge of this rule Junius 
is without a rival ; and the present instance, 
among a thousand others, is a convincing testi- 
mony of his dexterity in the application of it. 
' But here it will be said, it is not from cir- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



I wish it were possible to establish my 
inference with the same certainty, on which 



cumstance and conjecture alone that this charge 
against the duke of Bedford is founded ; the 
general character of every one takes its colour 
and complexion from that quality in him which 
predominates, and the allowed avarice of the 
man affords an evidence not to be resisted of the 
rapacity of the ambassador : and is it then so 
incontestible a point that the duke is indeed the 
sordid man which Junius has delineated? are 
there no instances to be produced that denote a 
contrary disposition? one would think if a 
vicious thirst of gain had borne so large a share, 
as is pretended, in his Grace's composition, this 
would have discovered itself in the pecuniary 
emoluments he had secured for himself when he 
engaged in a share of Government. But what 
advantages of this kind has he obtained ; or to 
what bargains with the minister does Junius 
allude, when he knows that his Grace, though 
willing to assist the friends of administration 
with his interest and weight, has not accepted 
any department either of power or profit ? had 
Junius and candour x^oX. shaken hands, this cir- 
cumstance alone would have afforded him an 
evidence beyond all the legal proofs of a court of 
justice, of the iniquity of his own insinuations. 
But we are not at a loss for other instances, and 
those no ordinary ones, of the duke's munifi- 
cence. To what principle shall we attribute the 
payment of the elder brother's debts to the 
amount of not much less than one hundred 
thousand pounds ? the splendid provision he 
made for his unfortunate son ; and afterwards 
for that son's more unfortunate widow? what 
shall we say to his known attachments to the 
interests of his friends, his kindness to his domes- 
tics, and annual bounty to those who have 
served him faithfully ? his indulgence to his de- 
pendants ? or what are, if these be not, une- 
quivocal proofs of genuine liberality and benevo- 
lence ? 

' When to these symptoms of an enlarged and 
generous mind, we add what are equally constitu- 
ent parts of his Grace's character, the decency 
and decorum of his conduct in private life, his 
regularity in his family, and what is now so rare 
a virtue among the greatj his constant attend- 
ance on all the public offices of Divine Worship, 
we shall hardly find, in the whole circle of the 
nobility, a man that has a juster and much more 
than a constitutional claim to respect, or one that 
less deserved the censures of a satirist, such as 
Junius, than his Grace of Bedford. But in the 
reflections of Junius there is a more surprising 
piece of profligacy yet behind. As if all the 
former instances of his malignity had been too 
little, he has filled up the measure of his crimes 
by calling back to our remembrance the loss, 
which not the father alone, but the kingdom 
sustained in the death of his only son, and to re- 
proach him for the insensibility he supposes him 
to have discovered, on that affecting occasion. 
The cruelty of this accusation is only to be 



I believe the principle is founded. My 
conclusion however was not drawn from the 

paralleled by the falsehood of it, and in a better 
age than the present would have been deemed a 
prodigy. To one who possessed the proper 
sentiments of a man, the dwelling at all on a 
calamity which is still so recent, which in all 
its circumstances was so truly pitiable, would 
have appeared in the highest degree ungenerous 
and mean ; but to represent the principal sufferer 
in this scene of woe as the only one not sensible 
of his misfortune ; to paint a father destitute of 
a father's love, and even professing a want of 
those feelings which do honour to the multitude, 
is an instance of barbarity of which a savage 
would have been ashamed, and which no pretti- 
nesses of style, no powers of language, no literary 
merit, can ever excuse or expiate : and indeed, 
corrupt as the times are said to be, I have the 
satisfaction to observe Junius for once has 
reckoned without his host, and mistaken the taste 
and temper of his countrymen : we can allow 
for the petulance which want and hunger extort 
from an opposition ; we can pity the wretch who 
is obliged to draw his venal quill, and say and 
unsay as is dictated to him by his superiors : 
but we are not yet so far gone in the road to 
ruin, or dead to all the movements of compassion, 
as to behold without abhorrence the man, who 
can so totally resign all pretences to humanity, 
or regard him in any other light than as the 
object of general detestation. 

' Junius in his letter to the duke of Bedfo'-,J, 
amuses himself with describing, in theory, the 
dignity and importance of an independent 
nobleman : by way of conclusion to these re- 
marks, I shall delineate for him in return, what 
I conceive should be the character of one who 
sets up for a political writer ; and this, in imita- 
tion of his own method, both by the positive 
and negative marks which may be given of it. 
A writer then of this class, though he will ever 
be suspicious of the conduct of those in power, 
will be sure to watch with equal jealousy over 
himself, lest in his zeal for exciting a reasonable 
love of Hberty, he encourage a dangerous spirit 
of licentiousness : he will be as cautious of 
weakening the constitutional powers of the 
prince, as he will be careful of supporting the 
undoubted rights of the people ; and will expose 
with the same freedom, in their turns, the ex- 
orbitances of prerogative, and the lawless efforts 
of a faction. In the negative parts of his cha- 
racter, he will not give occasion to the most dis- 
tant suspicion that his opposition to government 
proceeds not so much from a dislike to measures, 
as to men : in times of real security he will not 
inflame the minds of the populace with affected 
apprehensions : before he complains of griev- 
ances he will be sure they exist : in his freest 
writings he will never violate, knowingly, the 
laws of truth and justice ; he will not causelessly 
expose the follies of youth, the infirmities of age, 
or the irregularities of private life, in which the 
public interests are not concerned : he will be 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



principle alone. I am not so unjust as to 
reason from one crime to another ; though 
I think, that, of all the vices, avarice is 
most apt to taint and corrupt the heart. I 
combined the known temper of the man, 
with the extravagant concessions made by 
the ambassador ; and though I doubt not 
sufficient care w^as taken to leave no docu- 
ment of any treasonable negotiation, I still 
maintain that the conduct •■■ of this minister 
carries with it an internal and a convincing 
evidence against him. SirWilham Draper 
seems not to know the value or force of 
such a proof. He will not permit us 
to judge of the motives of men, by the 
manifest tendency of their actions, nor by 
the notorious character of their minds. He 
calls for papers and witnesses, with a sort 
of triumphant security, as if nothing could 
be true but what could be proved in a 
court of justice. Yet a religious man might 
have remembered, upon what foundation 
some truths, most interesting to mankind, 
have been received and estabhshed. If it 
were not for the internal evidence, which 
the purest of religions carries with it, what 
would have become of his once well-quoted 
decalogue, and of the meekness of his 
Christianity ? 

The generous warmth of his resentment 
makes him confound the order of events. 
He forgets that the insults and distresses 
which the duke of Bedford has suffered, 
and which sir William has lamented with 
many delicate touches of the true pathetic, 
were only recorded in my letter to his Grace, 
not occasioned by it. It was a simple, 
candid narrative of facts ; though, for aught 
I know, it may carry with it something pro- 
phetic. His Grace undoubtedly has re- 
ceived several ominous hints ; and I think, 
in certain circumstances, a wise man would 

restrained by a sense of honour from calumniat- 
ing the innocent or satirising the unhappy : in a 
word, he will not take advantage of his own 
security to stab in the dark, or with Solomon's 
fool, divert himself with holding out the most 
respectable characters as objects of contempt 
and ridicule, and say, am not I in sport?' — 
Edit. 

^ If sir W. D. will take the trouble of looking 



do well to prepare himself for the event. 

But I have a charge of a heavier nature 
against sir William Draper. He tells us 
that the duke of Bedford is amenable to 
justice ; — that parhament is a high and 
solemn tribunal ; and that, if guilty, he 
may be punished by due course of law ; 
and all this, he says, with as much gravity 
as if he believed every word of the matter. 
I hope, indeed, the day of impeachments 
will arrive before this nobleman escapes 
out of life ; — but to refer us to that mode 
of proceeding now, with such a ministry, 
and such a House of Commons as the pre- 
sent, what is it, but an indecent mockery 
of the common sense of the nation ? I think 
he might have contented himself with de- 
fending the greatest enemy, without insult- 
ing the distresses of his country. 

His concluding declaration of his opinion, 
with respect to the present condition of 
affairs, is too loose and undetermined to be 
of any service to the public. How strange 
it is that this gentleman should dedicate so 
much time and argument to the defence of 
worthless or indifferent characters, while he 
gives but seven sohtary Hnes to the only 
subject, which can deserve his attention, or 
do credit to his abiUties. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 2o October, 1769. 

I VERY sincerely applaud the spirit 
with which a lady has paid the debt of 
gratitude to her benefactor. 2 Though I 
think she has mistaken the point, she shows 
a virtue which makes her respectable. The 
question turned upon the personal geher- 



into Torcy's Memoirs, he will see with what 
little ceremony a bribe may be offered to a duke, 
and with what little ceremony it was only not 
accepted. — Author. 

It is too generally known to need further ex- 
planation that the first duke of Marlborough is 
the nobleman here referred to. — Edit. 

^ The letter of Mrs Griffiths, signed Frances. 
See note, ante, p. 200. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



osity or avarice of a man, whose private 
fortune is immense. The proofs of his 
munificence must be drawn from the uses 
to which he has applied that fortune. I 
was not speaking of a lord-Heutenant of 
Ireland, but of a rich English duke, whose 
wealth gave him the means of doing as 
much good in this country, as he de- 
rived from his power in another. I am far 
from wishing to lessen the merit of this 
single benevolent action ; — perhaps it is the 
more conspicuous from standing alone. 
All I mean to say is, that it proves nothing 
in the present argument. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXIX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 October, 1769. 

I AM well assured that Junius 
will never descend to a dispute with such a 
writer as Modestus (whose letter appeared 
in the Gazetteer of Monday ^) especially as 
the dispute must be chiefly about words. 
Notwithstanding the partiality of the pub- 
lic, it does not appear that Junius values 
himself upon any superior skill in composi- 
tion, and I hope his time will always be 
more usefully employed than in the trifling 
refinements of verbal criticism. Modestus, 
however, shall have no reason to triumph 
in the silence and moderation of Junius. 
If he knew as much of the propriety of 
language, as I believe he does of the facts 
in question, he would have been as cautious 
of attacking Junius upon his composition, 
as he seems to be of entering into the sub- 
ject of it ; yet after all, the last is the only 
article of any importance to the public. 

I do not wonder at the unremitted ran- 
cour with which the duke of Bedford and 
his adherents invariably speak of a nation, 
which we well know has been too much in- 
jured to be easily forgiven. But why must 
Junius be an Irishman? — The absurdity of 



' The gentleman who wrote several letters 
under this signature in the Gazetteer, and subse- 
quently in the Public Advertiser, was a Mr 



his writings betrays him. — Waving all con- 
sideration of the insult offered by Modestus 
to the declared judgment of the people 
(they may well bear this among the rest), 
let us follow the several instances, and try 
whether the charge be fairly supported. 

First then, — the leaving a man to enjoy 
such repose as he can find upon a bed of 
torture, is severe indeed ; perhaps too much 
so, when applied to such a trifler as sir 
William Draper ; but there is nothing ab- 
surd either in the idea or expression. Mo- 
destus cannot distinguish between a sar- 
casm and a contradiction. 

2. I affirm with Junius, that it is ih^ fre- 
quency of the fact, which alone can make 
us comprehend how a man can be his own 
enemy. We should never arrive at the 
complex idea conveyed by those words, if 
we had only seen one or two instances of a 
man acting to his own prejudice. Ofter 
the proposition to a child, or a man unused 
to compound his ideas, and you will soon 
see how little either of them understand 
you. It is not a simple idea arising from a 
single fact, but a very complex idea arising 
from many facts well observed, and ac- 
curately compared. 

3. Modestus could not, without great 
affectation, mistake the meaning of Junius, 
when he speaks of a man who is the bitter- 
est enemy of his friends. He could not but 
know, that Junius spoke, not of a false or 
hollow friendship, but of a real intention to 
serve, and that intention producing the 
worst effects of enmity. Whether the de- 
scription be strictly applicable to sir William 
Draper is another question. Junius does 
not say that it is more criminal for a man 
to be the enemy of his friends than his own, 
though he might have affirmed it with 
truth. In a moral light a man may cer- 
tainly take greater liberties with himself 
than with another. To sacrifice ourselves 
merely, is a weakness we may indulge in, 
if we think proper, for we do it at our own 
hazard and expense ; but, under the pre- 



Dalrymple, a Scotch Advocate, For a specimen 
of his style, see Miscell. Lett. No. LXVII. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



203 



tence of friendship, to sport with the reput- 
ation, or sacrifice the honour of another, 
is something worse than wealcness ; and if, 
in favour of the. foohsh intention, we do 
not call it a crime, we must allow at least 
that it arises from an overweening, busy, 
meddling impudence. — Junius says only, 
and he says truly, that it is more extra- 
ordinary, that it involves a greater contra- 
diction than the other ; and is it not a 
maxim received in life, that in general we 
can determine more wisely for others than 
for ourselves? The reason of it is so clear 
in argument, that it hardly wants the con- 
firmation of experience. Sir William 
Draper, I confess, is an exception to the 
general rule, though not much to his credit. 

4, If this gentleman will go back to his 
ethics, he may perhaps discover the truth 
of what Junius says, that no outward 
tyranny can reach the mind. The tortures 
of the body may be introduced by way of 
ornament or illustration to represent those 
of the mind, but strictly there is no simili- 
tude between them. They are totally 
different both in their cause and operation. 
The wretch who suffers upon the rack, is 
merely passive ; but when the mind is tor- 
tured, it is not at the command of any out- 
ward power. It is the sense of guilt which 
constitutes the punishment, and creates 
that torture with which the guilty mind 
acts upon itself. 

5. He misquotes what Junius says of 
conscience, and makes the sentence ridicul- 
ous, by making it his own. 

So much for composition. Now for fact. 
—Junius it seems has mistaken the duke 
of Bedford. His Grace had all the proper 
feelings of a father, though he took care to 



^ Within a fortnight after lord Tavistock's 
death, the venerable Gertrude had a rout at 
Bedford-house. The good duke (who had only 
sixty thousand pounds a year) ordered an inven- 
tory to be taken of his son's wearing apparel, 
down to his slippers, sold them all, and put the 
money in his pocket. The amiable marchioness, 
shocked at such brutal, unfeeling avarice, gave 
the value of the clothes, to the marquis's servant, 
out of her own purse. That incomparable woman 
did not long survive her husband. When she 
died, the duchess of Bedford treated her as the 



suppress the appearance of them. Yet it 
was an occasion, one would think, on which 
he need not have been ashamed of his 
grief ; — on which less fortitude would have 
done him more honour. I can conceive 
indeed a benevolent motive for his endea- 
vouring to assume an air of tranquillity in 
his own family, and I wish I could dis- 
cover any thing, in the rest of his character, 
to justify my assigning that motive to his 
behaviour. But is there no medium ? Was 
it necessary to appear abroad, to ballot at 
the India H^ouse, and make a public dis- 
play, though it were only of an apparent 
insensibility ? — I know we are treading 
on tender ground, and Junius, I am con- 
vinced, does not wish to urge this question 
farther. Let the friends of the duke of 
Bedford observe that humble silence, which 
becomes their situation. They should re- 
collect that there are still some facts in 
store, at which human nature would shud- 
der. I shall be understood by those whom 
it concerns, when I say that these facts go 
farther than to the duke.i 

It is not inconsistent to suppose that a 
man may be' quite indifferent about one 
part of a charge, yet severely stung with 
another, and though he feels no remorse, 
that he may wish to be revenged. The 
charge of insensibility carries a reproach 
indeed, but no danger with it. — Junius had 
said, there are others who would assassinate. 
Modestus, knowing his man, will not suffer 
the insinuation to be divided, but fixes 
it all upon the duke of Bedford. 

Without determining upon what evidence 
Junius would choose to be condemned, I will 
venture to maintain, in opposition to Modes- 
tus, or to Mr Rigby (who is certainly not 
Modestus), or any other of the Bloomsbury 

duke had treated his only son. She ordered 
every gown and trinket to be sold, and pocketed 
the money. — These are the monsters, whom sir 
William Draper comes forward to defend. — May 
God protect 7ne from doing anything that may 
require such defence, or deserve such friend- 
ship. — Author. 

The marquis of Tavistock, the duke of Bed- 
ford's only son, who was killed, as already re- 
lated, by a fall from his horse, had married the 
sister of the late carl of Albemarle. — Edit. 



204 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



gang, that the evidence against the duke of 
Bedford is as strong as any presumptive 
evidence can be. It depends upon a com- 
bination of facts and reasoning, which require 
no confirmation from the anecdote of the 
duke of Marlborough. This anecdote was 
referred to merely to show how ready a 
great man may be to receive a great bribe ; 
and if Modes tus could read the original, he 
would see that the expression, only not ac- 
cepted, was probably the only one in our 
language that exactly fitted the case. The 
bribe, offered to the duke of Marlborough, 
was not refused. 

I cannot conclude without taking notice 
of this honest gentleman's learning, and 
wishing he had given us a little more of it. 
When he accidentally found himself so near 
speaking truth, it was rather unfair of him 
to leave out the nan potuisse refelli. As it 
stands, the pudet hcec opprobria may be 
divided equally between Mr Rigby and the 
dske of Bedford. Mr Rigby, I take for 
granted, will assert his natural right to the 
modesty of the quotation, and leave all the 
opprobrium to his Grace. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 October, 1769. 

It is not wonderful that the great 
cause, in which this country is engaged, 
should have roused and engrossed the whole 
attention of the people. I rather admire 
the generous spirit, with which they feel and 
assert their interest in this important ques- 
tion, than blame them for their indifference 
about any other. When the constitution is 
openly invaded, when the first original right 
of the people, from which all laws derive 
their authority, is directly attacked, inferior 
grievances naturally lose their force, and 

^ Major-general Gansel was arrested Septem- 
ber 21, 1769, in Piccadilly, for two tliousand 
pounds. He told the bailiff, if he would go down 
with him to the Tilt-yard, he should there find a 



are suffered to pass by without punishment 
or observation. The present ministry are 
as singularly marked by their fortune, as by 
their crimes. Instead of atoning for their 
former conduct by any wise or popular 
measure, they have found, in the enormity 
of one fact, a cover and defence for a series 
of measures, which must have been fatal to 
any other administration. I fear we are 
too remiss in observing the whole of their 
proceedings. Struck with the principal 
figure, we do not sufficiently mark in what 
manner the canvass is filled up. Yet surely 
it is not a less crime, nor less fatal in its 
consequences, to encourage a flagrant 
breach of the law by a military force, than 
to make use of the forms of parliament to 
destroy the constitution. — The ministry 
seem determined to give us a choice of dif- 
ficulties, and, if possible, to perplex us with 
the multitude of their offences. The expe- 
dient is well worthy of the duke of Grafton. 
But though he has preserved a gradation 
and variety in his measures, we should re- 
member that the principle is uniform. Dic- 
tated by the same spirit, they deserve the 
same attention. The following fact, though 
of the most alarming nature, has not yet 
been clearly stated to the public, nor have 
the consequences of it been sufficiently un- 
derstood. Had I taken it up at an earlier 
period, I should have been accused of an 
uncandid, malignant precipitation, as if I 
watched for an unfair advantage against 
the ministry, and would not allow them 
a reasonable time to do their duty. They 
now stand without excuse. Instead of em- 
ploying the leisure they have had, in a 
strict examination of the offence, and 
punishing the offenders, they seem to have 
considered that indulgence as a security to 
them, that, with a little time and manage- 
ment, the whole affair might be buried in 
silence, and utterly forgotten. 

A major-general of the army is arrested 
by the sheriff's officers for a considerable 
debt.i He persuades them to conduct him 



friend, and would, on his not giving bail, go with 
him to a spunging-house. When they came to 
the Horse-guards, the officer sent for a serjeant 
and file of musqueteers to secure the bailiff, on 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



205 



to the Tilt-yard in St James's Park, under 
some pretence of business, which it imported 
him to settle before he was confined. He 
applies to a serjeant, not immediately on 
duty, to assist with some of his companions 
in favouring his escape. He attempts it. 
A bustle ensues. The bailiffs claim their 
prisoner. An officer of the guards,^ not 
then on duty, takes part in the affair, ap- 
plies to the lieutenant commanding the 
Tilt-yard guard, 2 and urges him to turn out 
his guard to relieve a general officer. The 
lieutenant declines interfering in person, but 
stands at a distance, and suffers the business 
to be done. The other officer takes upon | 
himself to order out the guard. In a [ 
moment they are in arms, quit their guard, j 
march, rescue the general, and drive away j 
the sheriffs' officers, who in vain represent j 
their right to the prisoner, and the nature j 
of the arrest. The soldiers first conduct the 
general into their guard room, then escort 
him to a place of safety, with bayonets 
fixed, and in all the forms of military 
triumph. I will not enlarge upon the 
various circumstances which attended this 
atrocious proceeding. The personal injury 
received by the officers of the law in the 
execution of their duty, may perhaps be 
atoned for by some private compensation. 
I consider nothing but the wound which 
has been given to the law itself, to which 
no remedy has been applied, no satisfaction 



a pretence that he had been insulted by him, 
which they did, while the prisoner escaped. 
Adjutant-general Harvey having heard of the 
affair, ordered the serjeant and his men close 
prisoners to the Savoy, and sent captain Cox to 
notify to the sheriffs the steps he had taken in 
consequence of the proceedings of general Gan- 
sel, who had, in the mean while, surrendered 
himself into custody. In consequence of the 
above circumstance, on the 21st of April follow- 
ing, was issued to the brigade of guards, the 
Order as under : 

' Parole Hounslow, 

' B. O. His Majesty has signified to the field 
officer in waiting, that he has been acquainted 
that serjeant Bacon of the first regiment, and 
Serjeant Parke of the Coldstream regiment, 
William Powell, William Hart, James Porter, 
and Joseph Collins, private soldiers in the first 
regiment of foot-guards, were more or less con- 



made. Neither is it my design to dwell 
upon the misconduct of the parties con- 
cerned, any farther than is necessary to 
show the behaviour of the ministry in its 
true light. I would make every compas- 
sionate allowance for the infatuation of the 
prisoner, the false and criminal discretion 
of one officer, and the madness of another. 
I would leave the ignorant soldiers entirely 
out of the question. They are certainly the 
least guilty, though they are the only per- 
sons who have yet suffered, even in the 
appearance of punishment. ^ The fact itself, 
however atrocious, is not the principal 
point to be considered. It might have 
happened under a more regular govern- 
ment, and with guards better disciplined 
than ours. The main question is, in what 
manner have the ministry acted on this 
extraordinary occasion. A general officer 
calls upon the king's own guard, then actu- 
ally on duty, to rescue him from the laws 
of his country ; yet at this moment he is in 
a situation no worse, than if he had not 
committed an offence, equally enormous in 
a civil and military view. — A lieutenant 
upon duty designedly quits his guard, and 
suffers it to be drawn out by another officer, 
for a purpose, which he well knew (as we 
may collect from an appearance of caution, 
which only makes his behaviour the more 
criminal), to be in the highest degree illegal. 
Has this gentleman been called to a court 



cerned in the rescue of major-general Gansel, in 
September last ; the king hopes, and is willing 
to believe, they did not know the major-general 
was arrested, and only thought they were de- 
livering an officer in distress : however his 
Majesty commands, that they should be severely 
reprimanded for acting in this business as they 
have done ; and strictly orders for the future, 
I that no commissioned officer or soldier do pre- 
sume to interfere with bailiffs, or arrests, on any 
! account or pretence whatsoever, the crime being 
of a very atrocious nature ; and if any are found 
I guilty of disobeying this order, they will be most 
I severely punished. This order to be read imme- 
1 diately at the head of every company in the 
I brigade of guards, that no man may plead ignor- 
i ance for the future.' — Edit. 
j ^ Lieutenant Dodd. 
I ^ Lieutenant Garth. 

I 3 A few of them were confined, and the rest, 
I as already observed, reprimanded. — Edit. 



2o6 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



martial to answer for his conduct? No. 
Has it been censured ? No. Has it been 
in any shape inquired into ? No. — Another 
lieutenant, not upon duty, nor even in his 
regimentals, is daring enough to order out 
the king's guard, over which he had pro- 
perly no command, and engages them in a 
violation of the laws of his country, per- 
haps the most singular and extravagant 
that ever was attempted. — What punish- 
ment has he suffered? Literally none. 
Supposing he should be prosecuted at com- 
mon law for the rescue, will that circum- 
stance, from which the ministry can derive 
no merit, excuse or justify their suffering 
so flagrant a breach of military discipline 
to pass by unpunished, and unnoticed ? Are 
they aware of the outrage offered to their 
sovereign, when his own proper guard is 
ordered out, to stop, by main force, the 
execution of his laws? What are we to 
conclude from so scandalous a neglect of 
their duty, but that they have other views 
which can only be answered by securing the 
attachment of the guards ? . The minister 
would hardly be so cautious of offending 
them, if he did not mean, in due time, to 
call for their assistance. 

With respect to the parties themselves, 
let it be observed, that these gentlemen. are 
neither young officers, nor very young men. 
Had they belonged to the unfledged race 
of ensigns, who infest our streets, and dis- 
honour our public places, it might perhaps 
be sufficient to send them back to that dis- 
cipline, from which their parents, judging 
lightly from the maturity of their vices, had 
removed them too soon. In this case, I 
am sorry to see, not so much the folly of 
youth, as the spirit of the corps, and the 
connivance of government. I do not ques- 
tion that there are many brave and worthy 
officers in the regiments of guards. But 
considering them as a corps, I fear it will 
be found that they are neither good soldiers, 
nor good subjects. Far be it from me to in- 
sinuate the most distant reflection upon the 
army. On the contrary, I honour and 
esteem the profession ; and if these gentle- 
men were better soldiers, I am sure they 



would be better subjects. It is not that 
there is any internal vice or defect in the 
profession itself, as regulated in this country, 
but that it is the spirit of this particular 
corps to despise their profession, and that 
while they vainly assume the lead of the 
army, they make it matter of impertinent 
comparison and triumph over the bravest 
troops in the world (I mean our marching 
regiments), that they indeed stand upon 
higher ground, and are privileged to neg- 
lect the laborious forms of military dis- 
cipline and duty. Without dwelling longer 
upon a most invidious subject, I shall leave 
it to military men, who have seen a service 
more active than the parade, to determine 
whether or no I speak tnith. 

How far this dangerous spirit has been 
encouraged by government, and to what 
pernicious purposes it may be applied here- 
after, well deserves our most serious con- 
sideration. I know indeed, that when this 
affair happened, an affectation of alarm 
ran through the ministry. Something 
must be done to save appearances. The 
case was too flagrant to be passed by ab- 
solutely without notice. But how have 
they acted ? Instead of ordering the officers 
concerned (and who, strictly speaking, are 
alone guilty,) to be put under arrest, and 
brought to trial, they would have it under- 
stood, that they did their duty completely, 
in confining a Serjeant and four private sol- 
diers, until they should be demanded by 
the civil power ; so that while the officers, 
who ordered or permitted the thing to be 
done, escape without censure, the poor 
men who obeyed those orders, who in a 
mihtary view are no way responsible for 
what they did, and who for that reason 
have been discharged by the civil magis- 
trates, are the only objects whom the min- 
istry have thought proper to expose to 
punishment. They did not venture to 
bring even these men to a court martial, 
because they knew their evidence would be 
fatal to some persons, whom they were de- 
termined to protect. Otherwise, I doubt 
not, the lives of these unhappy, friendless 
soldiers, would long since have been sacri- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



207 



ficed, without scruple, to the security of 
their guilty officers. 

I have been accused of endeavouring to 
enflame the passions of the people. — Let 
me now appeal to their understanding. If 
there be any tool of administration daring 
enough to deny these facts, or shameless 
enough to defend the conduct of the min- 
istry, let him come forward. I care not 
under what title he appears. He shall find 
me ready to maintain the truth of my nar- 
rative, and the justice of my observations 
upon it, at the hazard of my utmost credit 
with the public. 

Under the most arbitrary governments, 
the common administration of justice is 
suffered to take its course. The subject, 
though robbed of his share in the legisla- 
ture, is still protected by the laws. The 
political freedom of the English constitution 
was once the pride and honour of an Eng- 
lishman. The civil equality of the laws 
preserved the property, and defended the 
safety of the subject. Are these glorious 
privileges the birthright of the people, or 
are we only tenants at the will of the min- 
istry ? — But that I know there is a spirit of 
resistance in the hearts of my countrymen, 
that they value life, not by its conveniences, 
but by the independence and dignity of 
their condition, I should, at this moment, 
appeal only to their discretion. I should 
persuade them to banish from their minds 
all memory of what we were ; I should tell 
them this is not a time to remember that 
we were Englishmen ; and give it as my 
last advice, to make some early agreement 
with the minister, that since it has pleased 
him to rob us of those poUtical rights, 
which once distinguished the inhabitants 
of a country, where honour was happiness, 
he would leave us at least the humble, 
obedient security of citizens, and graciously 
condescend to protect us in our submission. 
JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 14 November, 1769. 

The variety of remarks, which 
have been made upon the last letter of 
Junius, and my own opinion of the Writer, 
who, whatever may be his faults, is cer- 
tainly not a weak man, have induced me 
to examine, with some attention, the sub- 
ject of that letter. I could not persuade 
myself that, while he had plenty of im- 
portant materials, he would have taken up 
a hght or trifling occasion to attack the 
ministry ; much less could I conceive that 
it was his intention to ruin the officers con- 
cerned in the rescue of general Gansel, or 
to injure the general himself. These are 
little objects, and can no way contribute to 
the great purposes he seems to have in 
view, by addressing himself to the pubUc. 
— Without considering the ornamented 
style he has adopted, I determined to look 
farther into the matter, before I decided 
upon the merits of his letter. The first 
step I took was to enquire into the truth of 
the facts ; for if these were either false or 
misrepresented, the most artful exertion of 
his understanding, in reasoning upon them, 
would only be a disgrace to him. — Now, 
Sir, I have found every circumstance stated 
by Junius to be literally true. General 
Gansel persuaded the bailiffs to conduct 
him to the parade, and certainly solicited a 
corporal and other soldiers to assist him in 
making his escape. Captain Dodd did 
certainly apply to captain Garth for the 
assistance of his guard. Captain Garth 
declined appearing himself, but stood aloof, 
while the other took upon him to order out 
the king's guard, and by main force res- 
cued the general. It is also strictly true, 
that the general was escorted by a file of 
musqueteers to a place of security. — These 
are facts, Mr Woodfall, which I promise 
you no gentleman in the guards will deny. 
If all or any of them are false, why are 
they not contradicted by the parties them- 



2o8 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



selves? However secure against military 
censure, they have yet a character to lose, 
and surely, if they are innocent, it is not 
beneath them to pay some attention to the 
opinion of the public. 

The force of JUNius's observations upon 
these facts cannot be better marked, than 
by stating and refuting the objections which 
have been made to them. One writer says, 
' Admitting the officers have offended, they 
are punishable at common law, and will 
you have a British subject punished twice 
for the same offence ? ' I answer that they 
have committed two offences, both very 
enormous, and violated two laws. The 
rescue is one offence, the flagrant breach 
of discipline another, and hitherto it does 
not appear that they have been punished, 
or even censured, for either. Another 
gentleman lays much stress upon the 
calamity of the case, and, instead of dis- 
proving facts, appeals at once to the com- 
passion of the public. This idea, as well 
as the insinuation that depriving the par- 
ties of their commissions wotcld be an in- 
jury to their creditors, can only refer to 
general Gansel. The other officers are in 
no distress, therefore have no claim to 
compassion, nor does it appear that their 
creditors, if they have any, are more likely 
to be satisfied by their continuing in the 
guards. But this sort of plea will not hold 
in any shape. Compassion to an offender, 
who has grossly violated the laws, is in 
effect a cruelty to the peaceable subject 
who has observed them ; and, even ad- 
mitting the force of any alleviating circum- 
stances, it is nevertheless true, that, in this 
instance, the royal compassion has inter- 
posed too soon. The legal and proper 
mercy of a king of England may remit the 
punishment, but ought not to stop the trial. 

Besides these particular objections, there 
has been a cry raised against Junius for his 
malice and injustice in attacking the 
ministry upon an event, which they could 
neither hinder nor foresee. This, I must 
affirm, is a false representation of his argu- 
ment. He lays no stress upon the event 
itself, as a ground of accusation against the 



ministry, but dwells entirely upon their sub- 
sequent conduct. He does not say that 
they are answerable for the offence, but for 
the scandalous neglect of their duty, in 
suffering an offence, so flagrant, to pass by 
without notice or enquiry. Supposing them 
ever so regardless of what they owe to the 
public, and as indifferent about the opinion 
as they are about the interests of their 
country, what answer, as officers of the 
crown, will they give to Junius, when he 
asks them, Are they aware of the outrage 
offered to their sovereign, when his own 
proper guard is ordered out to stop, by main 
force, the exectition of his laws ? — And when 
we see a ministry giving such a strange un- 
accountable protection to the officers of the 
guards, is it unfair to suspect, that they 
have some secret and unwarrantable motives 
for their conduct ? If they feel themselves 
injured by such a suspicion, why do they 
not immediately clear themselves from it, 
by doing their duty ? For the honour of 
the guards, I cannot help expressing another 
suspicion, that, if the commanding officer 
had not received a secret injunction to the 
contrary, he would, in the ordinary course 
of his business, have applied for a court 
martial to try the two subalterns ; the one 
for quitting his guard ; — the other for 
takinguponhim the command of the guard, 
and employing it in the manner he did. I 
do not mean to enter into or defend the 
severity, with which Junius treats the 
guards. On the contrary, I will suppose, 
for a moment, that they deserve a very 
different character. If this be true, in what 
light will they consider the conduct of the 
two subalterns, but as a general reproach 
and disgrace to the whole corps? And 
will they not wish to see them censured in 
a military way, if it were only for the credit 
and discipline of the regiment. 

Upon the whole. Sir, the ministry seem 
to me to have taken a very improper ad- 
vantage of the good-nature of the public, 
whose humanity, they found, considered 
nothing. in this affair but the distress of 
general Gansel. They would persuade us 
that it was only a common rescue, by a few 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



209 



disorderly soldiers, and not the formal 
deliberate act of the king's guard, headed 
by an officer, and the public has fallen into 
the deception. I think, therefore, we are 
obhged to Junius for the care he has taken 
to enquire into the facts, and for the just 
commentary with which he has given them 
to the world.— For my own part, I am as 
unwilling as any man to load the unfor- 
tunate ; but, really. Sir, the precedent, with 
respect to the guards, is of a most import- 
ant nature, and alarming enough (consider- 
ing the consequences with which it may be 
attended) to deserve a parliamentary en- 
quiry : when the guards are daring enough, 
not only to violate their own disciphne, but 
pubhcly and with the most atrocious vio- 
lence to stop the execution of the laws, and 
when such extraordinary offences pass with 
impunity, beheve me, Sir, the precedent 
strikes deep. , 

PHILOJUNIUS.i 



LETTER XXXIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 15 Nov. 1769. 

I ADMIT the claim of a gentleman, 
who publishes in the Gazetteer under the 
name of Modest us. "^ He has some right to 
expect an answer from me : though, I 
think, not so much from the merit or import- 
ance of his objections, as from my own 
voluntary engagement. I had a reason for 
not taking notice of him sooner, which, as 
he is a candid person, I believe he will think 
sufficient. In my first letter, I took for 
granted, from the time which had elapsed, 
that there was no intention to censure, nor 
even to try, the persons concerned in the 
rescue of general Gansel ; but Modestus 



This letter was originally printed in the 
Public Advertiser, with the signature of Moder- 
aius. It shows that Junius himself was pecu- 
liarly pleased with the composition, or he would 
not have raised it, in his own edition, to the 
rank of those letters which possess the signature 
of his chief auxihary. — Edit. 
^ In the copy corrected by the author, and 
from which the original edition of these letters 



having since either affirmed, or strongly 
insinuated, that the offenders might still°be 
brought to a legal trial, any attempt to pre- 
judge the cause, or to prejudice the minds 
of a jury, or a court martial, would be 
highly improper. 

A man more hostile to the ministry than 
I am, would not so often remind them of 
their duty. If the duke of Grafton will 
not perform the duty of his station, why 
is he minister?— I will not descend to 
a scurrilous altercation with any man : but 
this is a subject too important to be passed 
over with silent indifference. If the gen- 
tlemen, whose conduct is in question, are 
not brought to a trial, the duke of Grafton 
shall hear from me again. 3 

The motives on which I am supposed to 
have taken up this cause, are of little im- 
portance, compared with the facts them- 
selves, and the observadons I have made 
upon them. Without a vain profession of 
integrity, which, in these times, might justly 
be suspected, I shall show myself in effect 
a friend to the interests of my countrymen, 
and leave it to them to determine, whether 
I am moved by a personal malevolence to 
three private gentlemen, or merely by a 
hope of perplexing the ministry, or whether 
I am animated by a just and honourable 
purpose of obtaining a satisfaction to the 
laws of this country, equal, if possible, to 
the violation they have suffered. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 29 Nov. 1769. 

Though my opinion of your 
Grace's integrity was but httle affected by 
the coyness with which you received Mr 



was printed, he gives directions to omit the letters 
under this signature in the following words : — 
' Modestus is too stupid, and must not be in- 
serted.' For a specimen of his style, however, 
see Miscellaneous Letters, No. LXVII.— Edit. 
3 See this subject further pursued in Miscella- 
neous Letters, LXIV. to LXVIII. inclusive. — 
Edit. 

14 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Vaughan's proposals, 1 1 confess I gave you 
some credit for your discretion. You had 
a fair opportunity of displaying a certain 
delicacy, of which you had not been sus- 
pected ; and you were in the right to make 
use of it. By laying in a moderate stock 
of reputation, you undoubtedly meant to 
provide for the future necessities of your 
character, that with an honourable resist- 
ance upon record, you might safely indulge 
your genius, and yield to a favourite in- 
clination with security. But you have dis- 
covered your purposes too soon ; and, 
instead of the modest reserve of virtue, 
have shown us the termagant chastity of a 
prude, who gratifies her passions with dis- 
tinction, and prosecutes one lover for a 
rape, while she soHcits the lewd embraces 
of another. 

Your cheek turns pale ; for a guilty con- 
science tells you, you are undone. — Come 
forward, thou virtuous minister, and tell 
the world by what interest Mr Hine has 
been 'recommended to so extraordinary a 
mark of his Majesty's favour ; what was 
the price of the patent he has bought, and 
to what honourable purpose the purchase- 
money has been applied. Nothing less 
than many thousands could pay colonel 
Burgoyne's expenses at Preston. 2 Do you 
dare to prosecute such a creature as 
Vaughan, while you are basely setting up 
the royal patronage to auction? Do you 
dare to complain of an attack upon your 
own honour, while you are selling the 
favours of the crown, to raise a fund for 
corrupting the morals of the people ? And 
do you think it possible such enormities 

'■ The facts are detailed by Junius in a 
note, p. 212, and in Letter XXXVI. Mr 
Samuel Vaughan was a merchant in the city, of 
hitherto unblemished character, and strongly 
attached to the popular cause. The office he 
attempted to procure, had, at times, been pre- 
viously disposed of for a pecuniary consideration, 
and had, on one particular occasion, been sold 
by an order of the Court of Chancery, and con- 
sisted in the reversion of the clerkship to the 
Supreme Court in the island of Jamaica. A Mr 
Howell was, in fact, at this very time in treaty 
^vith the patentee for the purchase of his resigna- 
tion, which clearly disproved any criminal in- 
tention in Mr V. He was however prosecuted. 



should escape without impeachment ? It 
is indeed highly your interest to maintain 
the present House of Commons. Having 
sold the nation to you in gross, they will 
undoubtedly protect you in the detail ; for 
while they patronize j^'f«r crimes, they feel 
for their own. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON, 

My Lord, 12 Dec. 1769. 

I FIND with some surprise, that 
you are not supported as you deserve. 
Your most determined advocates have 
scniples about them, which yozi are un- 
acquainted with ; and, though there be 
nothi/ig too hazardous for your Grace to 
engage in, there are some things too in- 
famous for the vilest prostitute of a news- 
paper to defend. 3 In what other manner 
shall we account for the profound, sub- 
missive silence, which you and your friends 
have observed upon a charge, which called 
immediately for the clearest refutation, and 
would have justified the severest measures 
of resentment ? I did not attempt to blast 
your character by an indirect, ambiguous 
insinuation, but candidly stated to you a 
plain fact, which struck directly at the in- 
tegrity of a privy counsellor, of a first com- 
missioner of the Treasury, and of a leading 
minister, who is supposed to enjoy the first 
share in his Majesty's confidence.^ In 
every one of these capacities I employed 
the most moderate terms to charge you 



obviously from political motives, but which was 
dropped, as subsequently stated by Junius, after 
the affair of Hine's patent was brought before 
the public. — Edit. 

^ See the ensuing letter, as also Private Letter, 
No. 15, December 12, 1769. — Edit. 

3 From the publication of the preceding to this 
date, not one word was said in defence of the 
infamous duke of Grafton. But vice and impu- 
dence soon recovered themselves, and the sale of 
the roj'al favour was openly avowed and defend- 
ed. We acknowledge the piety of St James's ; 
but what is become of Ais morality ? 

4 And by the same means preserves it to this 
hour. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



with treachery to your sovereign, and 
breach of trust in your office. I accused 
you of having sold, or permitted to be sold, 
a patent place in the collection of the cus- 
toms at Exeter, to one Mr Hine, who, 
Unable or unwilling to deposit the whole 
purchase-money himself, raised part of it 
by contribution, and has flow a certain 
doctor Brooke quartered lipon the salary 
for one hundred pounds a year.— No sale 
by the candle was ever conducted with 
greater formality. — I affirm that the price 
at which the place was knocked down (and 
which, I have good reason to think, was 
not less than three thousand five hundred 
pounds) was, with your connivance and 
consent.i paid to colonel Burgoyne, to 
reward him, I presume, for the decency of 
his deportment at Preston ; 2 or to reim- 
burse him, perhaps, for the fine of one 
thousand pounds, which, for that very 
deportment, the Court of King's Bench 
thought proper to set upon him.— It is not 
often that the chief justice and the prime 
minister are so strangely at variance in 
their opinions of men and things. 



^ The following is the answer to the charge of 
Junius. 



I thank God there is not in human na- 
ture a degree of impudence daring enough 
to deny the charge I have fixed upon you. 
Your courteous secretary, s your confi- 
dential architect,4 are silent as the grave. 
Even Mr Rigby's countenance fails him. 
He violates his second nature, and blushes 
whenever he speaks of you. 5 Perhaps the 
noble colonel himself will relieve you. 
No man is more tender of his reputation. 
He is not only nice, but perfectly sore in 
every thing that touches his honour. If 
any man, for example, were to accuse him 
of taking his stand at a gaming-table, and 
watching, with the soberest attention, for a 
fair opportunity of engaging a drunken 
young nobleman at piquet, he would un- 
doubtedly consider it as an infamous asper- 
sion upon his character, and resent it like a 
man of honour.— Acquitting him therefore 
of drawing a regular and splendid subsist- 
ence from any unworthy practices, either 
in his own house or elsewhere, let me ask 
your Grace, for what military merits you 
have been pleased to reward him with a 
military government ? 6 He had a regiment 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

^^^' ^ru • r . ■ ^^^- ^4' ^769. 

I he infamous traduction of that libeller 
JUNIUS, his daring falsehoods, and gross misre- 
presentations, excite in me the utmost abhorrence 
and contempt, and I hope all his deadly poisons 
will be sheathed in th? natural antidote every 
good mind has to malevolent and bitter invect- 
ive. What act of delinquency has the duke of 
b-rafton committed, by colonel JBurgoyne dis- 
posing of a patent obtained of his Grace ? Will 
Junius dare to assert it was with the duke's 
privity, or for his emolument? Let us state the 
fact, and disarm the assassin at once. A place in 
the custom-house at Exeter becomes vacant- 
colonel Burgoyne asks it of the duke of Grafton 
—he gives it.— The colonel says, I cannot hold 
It myself; will you give it my friend ?— The 
duke consents — the colonel nominates — the 
duke appoints ; but, says Junius, the colonel 
set It up to sale, and actually received a sum of 
money for U. Be it so-he took a gross sum for 
what_ was given him as an annual income; and 
who is injured by this ? If the duke of Grafton 
sodit heis impeachable; if he gave it to be 
sold he IS blameable ; but if his Grace did 
neither, which is the fact, he is basely belied, 
and most impudently and wickedly vilified. 
Edit. JUSTICE. 



Colonel, afterwards general, Burgoyne, was 
a candidate, together with sir Harry Houghton, 
tor Treason, at the general election in 1768, on 
the interest of the earl of Derby, who had a 
House m the town, in which he occasionally re- 
.sided, who was accustomed to return one, if not 
both the members, and whose daughter the 
colonel had run away with. The corporation 
supported sir Frank Standish and ' sir Peter 
Leicester, who were returned. Burgoyne and 
Houghton petitioned the House of Commons 
and set up the right of the inhabitants at large to 
vote, which was so decided by the House. The 
corporation endeavoured to controvert Ihis de- 
cision in 1784, and supported Mr M. A. Taylor 
and Mr (now serjeant) Clayton; a double return 
ensued. Mr Fox was nominee of Burgoyne and 
his colleague ; when the committee, after a very 
long hearing, confirmed the decision of 1768. It 
was during the former contest that colonel i3ur- 
goyne suffered his partisans to commit the most 
disgraceful excesses, and for which he was, upon 
the close of the election, prosecuted and fined 
as^stated in the te.xt.— Edit. ' 

2 Tommy Bradshaw. 

4 Mr Taylor. He and George Ross (the 
bcotch agent and worthy confidant of Lord 
Mansfield) managed the business. 

5 Mr Rigby was proverbially remarked for a 
countenance not easily abashed by anV occur- 
rence. — Edit. 

6 Col. Burgoyne, only a few days before the 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



of dragoons, which, one would imagine, 
was at least an equivalent for any services 
he ever performed. Besides, he is but a 
young officer, considering his preferment, 
and, except in his activity at Preston, not 
very conspicuous in his profession. But it 
seems, the sale of a civil employment was 
not sufficient, and military governments, 
which were intended for the support of 
worn-out veterans, must be thrown into the 
scale, to defray the extensive bribery of a 
contested election. Are these the steps you 
take to secure to your sovereign the attach- 
ment of his army ? With what countenance 
dare you appear in the royal presence, 
branded as you are with the infamy of a 
notorious breach of trust? With what 
countenance can you take your seat at the 
Treasury-board or in council, when yon feel 
that every circulating whisper is at your 
expense alone, and stabs you to the heart ? 
Have you a single friend in parliament so 
shameless, so thoroughly abandoned, as to 
undertake your defence? You know, my 
Lord, that there is not a man in either 
House, whose character, however flagitious, 
would not be ruined by mixing his reputa- 



date of this letter, had been promoted to the 
government of Fort William. — Edit. 

^ A little before the publication of this and 
the preceding letter, the chaste duke of Grafton 
had commenced a prosecution against Mr 
Samuel Vaughan, for endeavouring to corrupt 
his integrity, by an offer of five thousand pounds 
for a patent place in Jamaica. A rule to show 
cause, why an information should not be exhib- 
ited against Vaughan for certain misdemeanours, 
being granted by the Court of King's Bench, 
the matter was solemnly argued on the 27th_ of 
November, 1769, and, by the unanimous opinion 
of the four judges, the rule was made absolute. 
The pleadings and speeches were accurately 
taken in short-hand and published. The whole 
of lord Mansfield's speech, an.d particularly the 
following extracts from it, deserve the reader's 
attention. ' A practice of the kind complained 
of here is certainly dishonourable and scandalous. 
— If a man, standing under the relation of an 
officer under the king, or of a person in whom 
the king puts confidence, or of a minister, takes 
money for the use of that confidence the king 
puts in him, he basely betrays the king, — he 
basely betrays his trust. — If the king sold the 
office, it would be acting contrary to the trust 
the constitution hath reposed in him. The con- 
stitution does not intend the crown should sell 



tion with yours ; and does not your heart 
inform you, that you are degraded below 
the condition of a man, when you are 
obliged to hear these insults with sub- 
mission, and even to thank me for my mo- 
deration ? 

We are told, by the highest judicial 
authority, that Mr Vaughan's offer to pur- 
chase the reversion of a patent in Jamaica 
(which he was otherwise sufficiently en- 
titled to) amounted to a high misdemean- 
our. 1 Be it so : and if he deserves it, let 
him be punished. But the learned judge 
might have had a fairer opportunity of dis- 
playing the powers of his eloquence. Hav- 
ing delivered himself with so much energy 
upon the criminal nature and dangerous 
consequences of any attempt to corrupt a 
man in your Grace's station, what would 
he have said to the minister himself, to that 
very privy counsellor, to that first com- 
missioner of the Treasury, who does not 
wait for, but impatiently solicits the touch 
of corruption ; who employs the meanest 
of his creatures in these honourable serv- 
ices, and, forgetting the genius and fidelity 
of his secretary, descends to apply to his 
house-builder for assistance ? 



those offices, to raise a revenue out of them. — Is 
it possible to hesitate, whether this would not be 
criminal in the duke of Grafton ; — contrary to his 
duty as a privy counsellor — contrary to his duty 
as aminister — contrary to his duty as a subject. — 
His advice should be free according to his judg- 
ment ; — it is the duty of his office ; — he has sworn 
to it.' — Notwithstanding all this, the chaste duke 
of Grafton certainly sold a patent place to Mr 
Hine for three thousand five hundred pounds; 
and, for so doing, is now lord privy seal to the 
chaste George, with whose piety we are per- 
petually deafened. If the House of Commons 
had done their duty, and impeached the black 
duke for this most infamous breach of trust, how 
woefully must poor, honest Mansfield have been 
puzzled ! His embarrassment would have af- 
forded the most ridiculous scene that ever was 
exhibited. To save the worthy judge from this 
perplexity, and the no less worthy duke from 
impeachment, the prosecution against Vaicghan 
was immediaetly dropped upon my discovery and 
publication of the duke's treachery. The suf- 
fering this charge to pass, without any enquiry, 
fixes shameless prostitution upon the face of the 
House of Commons, more strongly than even 
the Middlesex election. — Yet the licentiousness 
of the press is complained of I 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



213 



This affair, my Lord, will do infinite 
credit to government, if, to clear your 
character, you should think proper to bring 
it into the House of Lords, or into the 

Court of King's Bench, But, my 

Lord, you dare not do either. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXV.i 



FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

19 December, 1769. 
When the complaints of a brave 
and powerful people are observed to increase 
in proportion to the wrongs they have suf- 
fered ; when, instead of sinking into sub- 
mission, they are roused to resistance, the 
time will soon arrive at which every inferior 
consideration must yield to the security of 
the sovereign, and to the general safety of 
the state. There is a moment of difficulty 
and danger, at which i^attery and falsehood 
can no longer deceive, and simpUcity itself 
can no longer be misled. Let us suppose 
it arrived. Let us suppose a gracious, well- 
intentioned Prince, made sensible at last of 
the great duty be owes to his people, and of 
his own disgraceful situation ; that he looks 
round him for assistance, and asks for no 
advice, but how to gratify the wishes and 
secure the happiness of his subjects. In these 



^ The address to the King through the medium 
of this letter, made a very great impression upon 
the pubhc mind at the moment of its appearance, 
and though 500 copies of the P. A. were printed 
in addition to the usual numbers circulated, not 
a single copy was to be procured in a few 
hours after its publication. The author him.self, 
indeed, seemed to entertain a very favourable 
opinion of it ; as in Private Letter, No. 15, 
speaking of this letter, he says, ' I am now me- 
ditating a capital, and, I hope, a final piece.' It 
was for this production that the printer was pro- 
secuted, and obtained the celebrated verdict of 
' guilty of printing and publishing only,' the con- 
sequence of which, as already observed in note 
to p. 122, was, that two distinct motions were 
made in court ; one by the counsel for the 
defendant in arrest of judgment, grounded on its 
ambiguity, and another bj' the counsel for the 
crown, to compel the defendant to show cause 
why the verdict should not be entered up accord- 
ing to the legal import. The case being argued, 
the 'Court of King's Bench ultimately decided 
that a new trial should be granted. This ac- 



circumstances, it may be matter of curious 
speculation to consider, if an honest man 
were permitted to approach a king, iu what 
terms he would address himself to his 
sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter 
how improbable, that the first prejudice 
against his character is removed, that the 
ceremonious difficulties of an audience are 
surmounted, that he feels himself animated 
by the purest and most honourable affec- 
tions to his king and country, and that the 
great person, whom he addresses, has spirit 
enough to bid him speak freely, and under- 
standing enough to listen to him with at- 
tendon. Unacquainted with the vain im- 
pertinence of forms, he would deliver his 
sentiments with dignity and firmness, but 
not without respect. 

Sir, 

It is the misfortune of your life, 
and originally the cause of every reproach 
and distress which has attended your gov- 
ernment, that you should never have been 
acquainted with the language of truth, until 
you heard it in the complaints of your 
people. It is not, however, too late to 
correct the error of your education. We 
are still inclined to make an indulgent 
allowance for the pernicious lessons you 
received in your youth, and to form the 



cordingly commenced, when the attorney-gener- 
al observing to the chief justice, that he had 
not the original newspaper by which he could 
prove the publication ; his Lordship laconically 
replied, 'that's not my fault, Mr Attorney:' 
and in this manner terminated the second trial. 
The fact is, that the foreman of the jury upon 
the first trial had pocketed the paper, upon 
its being handed to the jury box for inspection, 
and had afterwards destroyed it. The expense 
the defendant was put to in this prosecution, as 
stated in Private Letter, No. 19, amounted to 
about £110. The late Mr Almon, who was also 
prosecuted for selling a reprint of this letter, 
asserts, in a note toanother edition of this work, 
that the legal expense incurred in defending his 
own action, which could not exceed that of the 
original printer, amounted to between five and 
six hundred pounds ! An exaggeration which 
proves the necessity of exercising no small de- 
gree of caution, in estimating whatever other 
facts he has attempted to advance, with a view 
of elucidating the general history of the times. — 
Edit. 



214 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



most sanguine hopes from the natural 
benevolence of your disposition.! We are 
far from thinking you capable of a direct, 
deliberate purpose to invade those original 
rights of your subjects, on which all their 
civil and political liberties depend. Had it 
been possible for us to entertain a suspicion 
so dishonourable to your character, we 
should long since have adopted a style of 
remonstrance very distant from the humiUty 
of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by 
our laws, That the King can do no wrong, 
is admitted without reluctance. We separ- 
ate the amiable, good-natured prince from 
the folly and treachery of his servants, and 
the private virtues of the man from the 
vices of his government. Were it not for 
this just distinction, I know not whether 
your Majesty's condition, or that of the 
English nation, would deserve most to be 
lamented. I would prepare your mind for 
a favourable reception of truth, by remov- 
ing every painful, offensive idea of personal 
reproach. Your subjects. Sir, wish for 
nothing but that, as they are reasonable and 
affectionate enough to separate your person 
from your government, so you, in your 
turn, should distinguish between the con- 
duct which becomes the permanent dignity 
of a king, and that which serves only to 
promote the temporary interest and miser- 
able ambition of a minister. 
You ascended the throne with a declared, 

^ The plan of tutelage and future dominion 
over the heir-apparent, laid many years ago at 
Carlton-house between the Princess Dowager 
and her favourite the earl of Bute, was as gross 
and palpable, as that, which was concerted be- 
tween Anne of Austria and cardinal Mazarin, to 
govern Lewis the Fourteenth, and in effect to 
prolong his minority until the end of their lives. 
That prince had strong natural parts, and used 
frequently to blush for his own ignorance and 
want of education, which had been wilfully neg- 
lected by his mother and her minion. A little 
experience, however, soon showed him how 
shamefully he had been treated, and for what 
infamous purposes he had been kept in ignorance. 
Our great Edward too, at an early period, had 
sense enough to understand the nature of the 
connexion between his abandoned mother and 
the idetested Mortimer. But, since that time, 
human nature, we may observe, is greatly altered 
for the hotter. Dowagers may be chaste, and 
minions may be honest. When it was proposed 



and, I doubt not. a sincere resolution of 
giving universal satisfaction to your sub- 
jects. 2 You found them pleased with the 
novelty of a young prince, whose counte- 
nance promised even more than his words, 
and loyal to you not only from principle, 
but passion. It was not a cold profession 
of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a 
partial, animated attachment to a favourite 
prince, the native of their country. They 
did not wait to examine your conduct, nor 
to be determined by experience, but gave 
you a generous credit for the future bless- 
ings of your reign, and paid you in advance 
the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, 
Sir, was once the disposition of a people, who 
now surround your throne with reproaches 
and complaints. Do justice to yourself. 
Banish from your mind those unworthy 
opinions, with which some interested persons 
have laboured to possess you. Distrust the 
men, who tell you that the English are natur- 
ally light and inconstant ; — that they com- 
plain without a cause. Withdraw your con- 
fidence equally from all parties, from minis- 
ters, favourites, and relations ; and let there 
be one moment in your life, in which you 
have consulted your own understanding. 

When you affectedly renounced the name 
of Enghshman,^ believe me. Sir, you were 
persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compli- 
ment to one part of your subjects, at the 
expense of another. While the natives of 
Scotland are not in actual rebellion, they 



to settle the present king's household as Prince 
of Wales, it is well known that the earl of Bute 
was forced into it, in direct contradiction to the 
late king's inclination. That was the salient 
point, from which all the mischiefs and disgraces 
of the present reign took life and motion. From 
that moment lord Bute never suffered the Prince 
of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. — We 
need not look farther. 

^ ' Born and educated in this country, I glory 
in the name of Briton ; and the peculiar happi- 
ness of my life will ever consist in promoting the 
welfare of a people, whose loyalty and warm 
affection to me, 1 consider as the greatest and 
most permanent security of my throne.' Speech 
of the King, on opening his first parliament, 
November 18, 1760. — Edit. 

^ The author here alludes to the application of 
the word Briton, as used in the quotation fiom 
the King's speech, in the preceding note. — See, 
also, p. 218.— Edit, 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



215 



are undoubtedly entitled to protection ; nor 
do I mean to condemn the policy of giving 
some encouragement to the novelty of their 
affections for the house of Hanover. I am 
ready to hope for every thing from their 
new-born zeal, and from the future steadi- 
ness of their allegiance. But hitherto they 
have no claim to your favour. To honour 
them with a determined predilection and 
confidence, in exclusion of your English 
subjects, who placed your family, and, in 
spite of treachery and rebellion, have sup- 
ported it upon the throne, is a mistake too 
gross, even for the unsuspecting generosity 
of youth. In this error we see a capital 
violation of the most obvious rules of policy 
and prudence. We trace it, however, to 
an original bias in your education, and are 
ready to allow for your inexperience. 

To the same early influence we attribute 
it, that you have descended to take a share 
not only in the narrow views and interests 
of particular persons, but in the fatal 
malignity of their passions. At your acces- 
sion to the throne, the whole system of 
government was altered, not from wisdom 
or deliberation, but because it had been 
adopted by your predecessor. A little per- 
sonal motive of pique and resentment was 
sufficient to remove the ablest servants of 
the crown ; ^ but it is not in this country. 
Sir, that such men can be dishonoured by 
the frowns of a king. They were dismissed, 
but could not be disgraced. Without enter- 
ing into a minuter discussion of the merits 
of the peace, we may observe, in the im- 
prudent hurry with which the first overtures 
from France were accepted, in the conduct 
of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, 
the strongest marks of that precipitate 
spirit of concession, with which a certain 
part of your subjects have been at all times 
ready to purchase a peace with the natural 
enemies of this country. On your part we 
are satisfied that everything was honourable 
and sincere, and if England was sold to 

"^ One of the first acts of the present reign was 
to dismiss Mr Legge, because he had some 
years before refused to yield his interest in 
Hampshire to a Scotchman recommended by 



France, we doubt not that your Majesty 
was equally betrayed. The conditions of 
the peace were matter of grief and surprise 
to your subjects, but not the immediate 
cause of their present discontent. 

Hitherto, Sir, you had been sacrificed 
to the prejudices and passions of others. 
With what firmness will you bear the men- 
tion of your own ? 

A man, not very honourably distinguish- 
ed in the world, commences a formal attack 
upon your favourite, considering nothing, 
but how he might best expose his person 
and principles to detestation, and the na- 
tional character of his countrymen to con- 
tempt. The natives of that country. Sir, 
are as much distinguished by a peculiar 
character, as by your Majesty's favour. 
Like another chosen people, they have 
been conducted into the land of plenty, 
where they find themselves effectually 
marked, and divided from mankind. 
There is hardly a period, at which the 
most irregular character may not be re- 
deemed. The mistakes of one sex find a 
retreat in patriotism ; those of the other, in 
devotion. Mr Wilkes brought with him 
into politics the same liberal sentiments, 
by which his private conduct had been 
directed, and seemed to think, that, as 
there are few excesses in which an English 
gentleman may not be permitted to in- 
dulge, the same latitude was allowed him 
in the choice of his political principles, and 
in the spirit of maintaining them.— I mean 
to state, not entirely to defend his conduct. 
In the earnestness of his zeal, he suffered 
some unwarrantable insinuations to escape 
him. He said more than moderate men 
would justify ; but not enough to entitle 
him to the honour of your Majesty's per- 
sonal resentment. The rays of royal in- 
dignation, collected upon him, served only 
to illuminate, and could not consume. 
Animated by the favour of the people on 
one side, and heated by persecution on the 

lord Bute. This was the reason publicly assigned 
by his Lordship.— Author. 

The person here alluded to, was sir Simeon 
Stuart. — Edit. 



2l6 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



other, his views and sentiments changed 
with his situation. Hardly serious at first, 
he is now an enthusiast. The coldest 
bodies warm with opposition, the hardest 
sparkle in collision. There is a holy mis- 
taken zeal in politics as well as in rehgion. 
By persuading others, we convince our- 
selves. The passions are engaged, and 
create a maternal affection in the mind, 
which forces us to love the cause for which 
we suffer. — Is this a contention worthy of 
a king? Are you not sensible how much 
the meanness of the cause gives an air of 
ridicule to the serious difficulties into which 
you have been betrayed? the destruction 
of one man has been now, for many years, 
the sole object of your government ; and if 
there can be any thing still more disgrace- 
ful, we have seen, for such an object, the 
utmost influence of the executive power, 
and every ministerial artifice, exerted with- 
out success. Nor can you ever succeed, 
unless he should be imprudent enough to 
forfeit the protection of those laws to which 
you owe your crown, or unless your minis- 
ters should persuade you to make it a 
question of force alone, and try the whole 
strength of government in opposition to the 
people. The lessons he has received from 
experience, will probably guard him from 
such excess of folly ; and in your Majesty's 
virtues we find an unquestionable assurance 
that no illegal violence will be attempted. 

Far from suspecting you of so horrible a 
design, we would attribute the continued 
violation of the laws, and even this last 
enormous attack upon the vital principles 
of the constitution, to an ill-advised, un- 
worthy, personal resentment. From one 
false step you have been betrayed into 
another, and as the cause was unworthy of 
you, your ministers were determined that 
the prudence of the execution should corre- 
spond with the wisdom and dignity of the 
design. They have reduced you to the ne- 
cessity of chusing out of a variety of dif- 
ficulties ;— to a situation so unhappy, that 
you can neither do wrong without ruin, nor 
right without affliction. These worthy 
servants have undoubtedly given you many 



singular proofs of their abilities. Not con- 
tented with making Mr Wilkes a man of 
importance, they have judiciously trans- 
ferred the question, from the rights and in- 
terests of one man, to the most important 
rights and interests of the people, and 
forced your subjects, from wishing well to 
the cause of an individual, to unite with 
him in their own. Let them proceed as 
they have begun, and your Majesty need 
not doubt that the catastrophe will do no 
dishonour to the conduct of the piece. 

The circumstances to which you are re- 
duced, will not admit of a compromise with 
the English nation. Undecisive, qualifying 
measures will disgrace your government 
still more than open violence, and, without 
satisfying the people, will excite their con- 
tempt. They have too much understand- 
ing and spirit to accept of an indirect satis- 
faction for a direct injury. Nothing less 
than a repeal, as formal as the resolution 
itself, can heal the wound, which has been 
given to the constitution, ^ nor will any thing 
less be accepted. I can readily believe that 
there is an influence sufficient to recall that 
pernicious vote. The House of Commons 
undoubtedly consider their duty to the 
crown as paramount to all other obliga- 
tions. To us they are only indebted for 
an accidental existence, and have justly 
transferred their gratitude from their parents 
to their benefactors ;— from those who gave 
them birth, to the minister, from whose be- 
nevolence they derive the comforts and 
pleasures of their political life ; — who has 
taken the tenderest care of their infancy, 
and relieves their necessities without offend- 
ing their delicacy. But, if it were possible 
for their integrity to be degraded to a con- 
dition so vile and abject, that, compared 
with it, the present estimation they stand 
in is a state of honour and respect, consider. 
Sir, in what manner you will afterwards 
proceed. Can you conceive that the peo- 
ple of this country will long submit to be 
governed by so flexible a House of Com- 

^ See note to Letter XLVI., p. 267, in which 
the repeal of this resolution is distinctly detailed. 
— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



217 



mons ! It is not in the nature of human 
society, that any form of government, in 
such circumstances, can long be preserved. 
In ours, the general contempt of the people 
is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I am 
persuaded, would be the necessary effect 
of any base concession made by the present 
House of Commons, and, as a qualifying 
measure would not be accepted, it remains 
for you to decide whether you will, at any 
hazard, support a set of men, who have 
reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or 
whether you will gratify the united wishes 
of the whole people of England, by dis- 
solving the parliament. . 

Taking it for granted, as I do very sin- 
cerely, that you have personally no design 
against the constitution, nor any views in- 
consistent with the good of your subjects, 
I think you cannot hesitate long upon the 
choice, which it equally concerns your in- 
terest and your honour to adopt. On one 
side, you hazard the affections of all your 
English subjects ; you relinquish every hope 
of repose to yourself, and you endanger the 
establishment of your family for ever. All 
this you venture for no object whatsoever, 
or for such an object, as it would be an 
affront to you to name. Men of sense will 
examine your conduct with suspicion ; 
while those who are incapable of compre- 
hending to what degree they are injured, 
afflict you with clamours equally insolent 
and unmeaning. Supposing it possible 
that no fatal struggle should ensue, you 
determine at once to be unhappy, without 
the hope of a compensation either from in- 
terest or ambition. If an English king be 
hated or despised, he must be unhappy ; 
and this perhaps is the only political truth, 
which he ought to be convinced of without 
experiment. But if the English people 
should no longer confine their resentment 



^ Viscount Townshend, sent over on the plan 
of being resident governor. The history of his 
ridiculous administration shall not be lost to the 
public— Author. 

This promise the author did not fulfil ; but see 
his Miscellaneous Letter, No. IV., on the ap- 
pointment of this nobleman to the lord lieuten- 
ancy. — Edit. 

* In the king's speech of November 8, 1768, 



to a submissive representation of their 
wrongs ; if, following the glorious example 
of their ancestors, they should no longer 
appeal to the creature of the constitution, 
but to that high Being, who gave them the 
rights of humanity, whose gifts it were 
sacrilege to surrender, let me ask you. Sir, 
upon what part of your subjects would you 
rely for assistance ? ' ' 

The people of Ireland have been uni- 
formly plundered and oppressed. In re- 
turn, they give you every day fresh marks 
of their resentment. They despise the 
miserable governor you have sent them.i 
because he is the creature of lord Bute ; 
nor is it from any natural confusion in their 
ideas, that they are so ready to confound 
the original of a king with the disgraceful 
representation of him. 

r The distance of the colonies would make 
it impossible for them to take an active 
concern in your affairs, if they were as well 
affected to your government as they once 
pretended to be to your person. They were 
ready enough to distinguish between you 
and your ministers. They complained of 
an act of the legislature, but traced the 
origin of it no higher than to the servants 
of the crown : They pleased themselves 
with the hope that their sovereign, if not 
favourable to their cause, at least was im- 
partial. The decisive, personal part you 
took against them, has effectually banished 
that first distinction from their minds. ^ 
They consider you as united with your 
servants against America, and know how 
to distinguish the sovereign and a venal 
parliament on one side, from the real senti- 
ments of the English people on the other. 
Looking forward to independence, they 
might possibly receive you for their king ; 
but, if ever you retire to America, be as- 
sured they will give you such a covenant to 



it was declared ' That the spirit of faction had 
broken out afresh in some of the colonies, and, in 
one of them, proceeded to acts of violence and 
resistance to the execution of the laws ; — that 
Boston was in a state of disobedience to all law 
and government, and had proceeded to measures 
subversive of the constitution, and attended with 
circumstances, that manifested a disposition to 
throw off their dependence on Great Britain.' 



2l8 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



digest, as the presbytery of Scotland would 
have been ashamed to offer to Charles the 
Second. They left their native land in 
search of freedom, and found it in a desert. 
Divided as they are into a thousand forms 
of policy and religion, there is one point in 
which they all agree : — they equally detest 
the pageantry of a king, and the supercili- 
ous hypocrisy of a bishop. 

It is not then from the aUenated affec- 
tions of Ireland or America, that you can 
reasonably look for assistance ; still less 
from the people of England, who are 
actually contending for their rights, and in 
this great question, are parties against you. 
You are not, however, destitute of every 
appearance of support : You have all the 
Jacobites, Nonjurors, Roman Catholics, 
and Tories of this country, and all Scotland 
without exception. Considering from what 
family you are descended, the choice of 
your friends has been singularly directed ; 
and truly, Sir, if you had not lost the Whig 
interest of England, I should admire your 
dexterity in turning the hearts of your 
enemies. Is it possible for you to place 
any confidence in men, who, before they 
are faithful to you, must renounce every 
opinion, and betray every principle, both in 
church and state, which they inherit from 
their ancestors, and are confirmed in by 
their education ? whose numbers are so in- 
considerable, that they have long since been 
obliged to give up the principles and lan- 
guage which distinguish them as a party, 
and to fight under the banners of their 
enemies ? Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, 
and must conclude in treachery. At first 
they deceive ; at last they betray. 

As to the Scotch, I must suppose your 
heart and understanding so biassed, from 
your earhest infancy, in their favour, that 
nothing less than your own misfortunes can 
undeceive you. You will not accept of the 
uniform ejfperience of your ancestors ; and 
when once a man is determined to believe, 
the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms 
him in his faith. A bigoted understanding 
can draw a proof of attachment to the house 
of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the 



house of Stuart, and find an earnest of 
future loyalty in former rebellions. Ap- 
pearances are however in their favour : so 
strongly indeed, that one would think they 
had forgotten that you are their lawful 
king, and had mistaken you for a pretender 
to the crown. Let it be admitted then that 
the Scotch are as sincere in their present 
professions, as if you were in reality not an 
Englishman, but a Briton of the North. 
You would not be the first prince, of their 
native country, against whom they have 
rebelled, nor the first whom they have 
basely betrayed. Have you forgotten, Sir, 
or has your favourite concealed from you, 
that part of our history, when the unhappy 
Charles (and he too had private virtues) fled 
from the open, avowed indignation of his 
English subjects, and surrendered himself 
at discretion to the good faitli of his own 
countrymen. Without looking for support 
in their affections as subjects, he applied 
only to their honour as gentlemen, for pro- 
tection. They received him as they would 
your Majesty, with bows, and smiles, and 
falsehood, and kept him until they had 
settled their bargain with the English par- 
liament ; then basely sold their native king 
to the vengeance of his enemies. This, 
Sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but 
the deliberate treachery of a Scotch parlia- 
ment, representing the nation. A wise 
prince might draw from it two lessons of 
equal utihty to himself. On one side he 
might learn to dread the undisguised re- 
sentment of a generous people, who dare 
openly assert their rights, and who, in a 
just cause, are ready to meet their sovereign 
in the field. On the other side, he would 
be taught to apprehend something far more 
formidable ;— a fav/ning treachery, against 
which no prudence can guard, no courage 
can defend. The insidious smile upon the 
cheek would warn him of the canker in the 
heart. 

Fron> the uses to which one part of the 
army has been too frequently applied, ^ 



^ See Miscellaneous Letter, No. XXIV., in 
which the author discusses this subject more at 
large.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



219 



you have some reason to expect, that there 
are no services they would refuse. Here 
too we trace the partiahty of your under- 
standing. You take the sense of the army 
from the conduct of the guards, with the 
same justice with which you collect the 
sense of the people from the representations 
of the ministry. Your marching regiments. 
Sir, will not make the guards their example 
either as soldiers or subjects. They feel 
and resent, as they ought to do, that 
invariable, undistinguishing favour with 
which the guards are treated ; 1 while those 
gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, 
every laborious service is performed, are 
left to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine 
in quarters at home, neglected and forgot- 
ten. If they had no sense of the great 
original duty they owe their country, their 
resentment would operate like patriotism, 
and leave your cause to be defended by 
those to whom you have lavished the 
rewards and honours of their profession. 
The Prcetorian bands, enervated and de- 
bauched as they v/ere, had still strength 
enough to awe the Roman populace : but 
when the distant legions took the alarm, 
they marched to Rome, and gave away the 
empire. 

On this side then, whichever way you 
turn your eyes, you see nothing but per- 
ple.xity and distress. You may determine 
to support the very ministry who have 
reduced your affairs to this deplorable 
situation : you may shelter yourself under 
the forms of a parliament, and set your 
people at defiance. But be assured, Sir, 
that such a resolution would be as im- 
prudent as it would be odious. If it did 
not immediately shake your establishment, 
it would rob you of your peace of mind for 
ever. 

^ The number of commissioned officers in the 
guards are to the marching regiments as one to 
eleven ; — the number of regiments given to the 
guards, compared with those given to the line, 
is about three to one, at a moderate computation; 
consequently the partiahty in favour of the 
guards is as thirty-three to one. — So much for 
the officers.— The private men have fourpence a 
day to subsist on ; and five hundred lashes, if 
they desert. Under this punishment, they fre- 



On the other, how different is the pros- 
pect ! How easy, how safe and honourable 
is the path before you ! The English nation 
declare they are grossly injured by their 
representatives, and solicit your Majesty to 
exert your lawful prerogative, and give 
them an opportunity of recalling a trust, 
which, they find, has been scandalously 
abused. You are not to be told that the 
power of the House of Commons is not 
original, but delegated to them for the 
welfare of the people, from whom they 
received it. A question of right arises 
between the constituent and the represent- 
ative body. By what authority shall it be 
decided ? Will your Majesty interfere in a 
question in which you have properly no im- 
mediate concern ? — It would be a step 
equally odious and umiecessary. Shall the 
Lords be called upon to determine the 
rights and privileges of the Commons? — 
They cannot do it without a flagrant breach 
of the constitution. Or will you refer it to 
the judges ? — They have often told your an- 
cestors, that the law of parliament is above 
them. What party then remains, but to 
leave it to the people to determine for 
themselves? They alone are injured; and 
since there is no superior power, to which 
the cause can be referred, they alone ought 
to determine. 

I do not mean to perplex you with a 
tedious argument upon a subject already so 
discussed that inspiration could hardly 
throw a new light upon it. There are, how- 
ever, two points of view, in which it par- 
ticularly imports your Majesty to consider 
the late proceedings of the House of Com- 
mons. By depriving a subject of his birth- 
right, they have attributed to their own 
vote an authority equal to an act of the 
whole legislature ; and, though perhaps 

quently expire. With these encouragements, it 
is supposed, they may be deper^ded upon, when- 
ever a certain person thinks it necessary to 
butcher h.is fellozv-siibjecis. — -AuTHpR. 

The impoHcy here pointed out has been since 
acknowledged and acted upon : and the soldier 
of the present day has no reason to complain 
either of poverty of income, or severity of dis- 
cipline. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



not with the same motives, have strictly 
followed the example of the long parlia- 
ment, which first declared the regal office 
useless, and soon after, with as httle cere- 
mony, dissolved the House of Lords. The 
same pretended power, which robs an 
English subject of his birthright, may rob 
an English king of his crown. In another 
view, the resolution of the House of Com- 
mons, apparently not so dangerous to your 
Majesty, is still more alarming to your 
people. Not contented with divesting one 
man of his right, they have arbitrarily con- 
veyed that right to another. They have set 
aside a return as illegal, without daring to 
censure those officers, who were particularly 
apprized of Mr Wilkes's incapacity not only 
by the declaration of the House, but ex- 
pressly by the writ directed to them, and 
who nevertheless returned him as duly 
elected. They have rejected the majority 
of votes, the only criterion by which our 
laws judge of the sense of the people ; they 
have transferred the right of election 
from the collective to the representative 
body ; and by these acts, taken separately 
or together, they have essentially altered 
the original constitution of the House of 
Commons. Versed, as your Majesty un- 
doubtedly is, in the English history, it can- 
not easily escape you, how much it is your 
interest, as well as your duty, to prevent 
one of the three estates from encroaching 
upon the province of the other two, or 
assuming the authority of them all. 
When once they have departed from the 
great constitutional line, by which all their 
proceedings should be directed, who will 

^ It is evident from other passages, as well as 
the present, that Junius was not, strictly speak- 
ing, a partisan of Mr Wilkes, though he was a 
determined enemy to the decision of the House 
of Commons with respect to the Middlesex elec- 
tion. Mr Wilkes, previous to the judgment of 
the Court of King's Bench for two libels, which 
are more particularly touched upon in the editor's 
note to Letter XLVI., presented the following 
address and petition to the King, to neither of 
which, however, was any answer returned. _ It is 
to these documents that Junius alludes in the 
recommendation given in the foregoing para- 
graph. 



answer for their future moderation? Or 
what assurance will they give you, that, 
when they have trampled upon their equals, 
they will submit to a superior? Your 
Majesty may learn hereafter, how nearly 
the slave and tyrant are allied. 

Some of your council, more candid than 
the rest, admit the abandoned profligacy of 
the present House of Commons, but oppose 
their dissolution upon an opinion, I confess 
not very unwarrantable, that their succes- 
ors would be equally at the disposal of the 
Treasury. I cannot persuade myself that the 
nation will have profited so little by experi- 
ence. But if that opinion were well founded, 
you might then gratify our wishes at an 
easy rate, and appease the present clamour 
against your government, without offering 
any material injury to the favourite cause of 
corruption. 

You have still an honourable part to act. 
The affections of your subjects may still be 
recovered. But before you subdue their 
hearts, you must gain a noble victory over 
your own. Discard those little, personal 
resentments, which have too long directed 
your public conduct. Pardon this man the 
remainder of his punishment ; and if re- 
sentment still prevails, make it, what it 
should have been long since, an act, not of 
mercy, but contempt. He will soon fall 
back into his natural station, — a silent 
senator, and hardly supporting the weekly 
eloquence of a newspaper. The gentle 
breath of peace would leave him on the 
surface, neglected and unremoved. It is 
only the tempest, that lifts him from his 
place. 1 



to the king s most excellent majesty. 

Sire, 

I beg to throw myself at your Majesty's 
feet, and to supplicate that mercy and clemency 
which shine with such lustre among your many 
princely virtues. 

Some former ministers, whom your Majesty, in 
condescension to the wishes of your people, 
thought proper to remove, employed every 
wicked and deceitful art to oppress your subject, 
and to revenge their own personal cause on me, 
whom they imagined to be the principal author 
of bringing to the public view their ignorance, 
insufficiency, and treachery to your Majesty and 
the nation. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Withou* consulting your minister, call 
together _,our whole council. Let it appear 
to the public that you can determine and 
act for yourself. Come forward to your 
people. Lay aside the wretched formal- 
ities of a king, and speak to your subjects 
with the spirit of a man, and in the lan- 
guage of a gentleman. Tell them you have 
been fatally deceived. The acknowledg- 
ment will be no disgrace, but rather an 
honour to your understanding. Tell them 
you are determined to remove every cause 
of complaint against your government ; 
that you will give your confidence to no 
man, who does not possess the confidence 
of your subjects ; and leave it to themselves 
to determine, by their conduct at a future 
election, whether or no it be in reality the 
general sense of the nation, that their 
rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the 
present House of Commons, and the con- 
stitution betrayed. They will then do just- 
ice to their representatives and to. them- 
selves. 

These sentiments. Sir, and the style they 
are conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, 
because they are new to you. Accustomed 
to the language of courtiers, you measure 
their affections by the vehemence of their 



I have been the innocent but unhappy victim 
of their revenge. I was forced by their injustice 
and violence into an exile, which I have never 
ceased for several years to consider as the most 
cruel oppression, because I no longer could be 
under the benign protection of your Majesty in 
the land of liberty. 

With a heart full of zeal for the serv'ice of your 
Majesty, and my country, I implore, Sire, your 
clemenc}'. My only hopes of pardon are founded 
in the great goodness and benevolence of your 
Majesty ; and every day of freedom you may be 
graciously pleased to permit me the enjoyment 
of in my dear native land, shall give proofs of 
my zeal and attachment to your service. 
I am, 
Sire, 
Your Majesty's most obedient, 
and dutiful subject, 

March 4, 1768. JOHN WILKES. 

TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 

The humble Petition of John Wilkes, 
Sheweth, 

That your Petitioner, having stood forth 
in support of the constitutional rights of this 



expressions ; aryd, when they only praise 
you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. 
But this is not a time to trifle with your 
fortune. They deceive you, Sir, who tell 
you that you have many friends, whose af- 
fections are founded upon a principle of 
personal attachment. The first foundation 
of friendship is not the power of conferring 
benefits, but the equality with which they 
are received, and may be returned. The 
fortune, which made you a king, forbade 
you to have a friend. It is a law of nature 
which cannot be violated with impunity. 
The mistaken prince, who looks for friend- 
ship, will find a favourite, and in thai 
favourite the ruin of his affairs. 

The people of England are loyal to the 
house of Hanover, not from a vain pre- 
ference of one family to another, but from 
a conviction that the establishment of- that 
family was necessary to the support of their 
civil and religious liberties. This, Sir, is a 
principle of allegiance equally solid and 
rational ; — fit for Englishmen to adopt, and 
well worthy of your Majesty's encourage- 
ment. We cannot long be deluded by 
nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, 
of itself, is only contemptible ; — armed with 
the sovereign authority, their principles are 
formidable. The prince who imitates their 
conduct, should be warned by their example ; 
and while he plumes himself upon the 
security of his title to the crown, should 



kingdom, in opposition to a late violent admin- 
istration, hath been severely prosecuted at law, 
and sentenced to pay a heavy fine, and to suffer 
an imprisonment of twenty-two months ; that the 
unfair methods employed to convict your peti- 
tioner have been palpable and manifest ; that the 
petitioner has always been your Majesty's loyal 
subject, zealously attached to your illustrious 
house, and will remain the same to the end of 
his life ; that he looks up to the throne only for 
that protection and justice which eminently dis- 
tinguish your Majesty's royal character ; that 
your petitioner, with the greatest deference, sub- 
mits the whole of his case to your Majesty's 
consideration, and humbly supplicates your royal 
clemency. 

And your Petitioner, 

as in duty bound, 
shall ever pray. 
King's Bench Prism, JOHN WILKES. 
Nov. 28, 1768. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



remember that, as it was acquired by one 
revolution, it may be lost by another.! 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXVL 

to HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 14 Feb. 1770. 

If I were personally your enemy, 
i might pity and forgive you. You have 
every claim to compassion, that can arise 
from misery and distress. The condition 
you are reduced to would disarm a private 
enemy of his resentment, and leave no con- 
solation to the most vindictive spirit, but 
that such an object, as you are, would dis- 
grace the dignity of revenge.' But in the 
relation you have borne to this country, you 
have no title to indulgence ; and if I had 
followed the dictates of my own opinion, I 
never should have allowed you the respite 
of a moment. In your public character, 
you have injured every subject of the em- 
pire ; and though an individual is not 
authorized to forgive the injuries done to 
society, he is called upon to assert his 
separate share in the public resentment. I 
submitted however to the judgment of men, 
more moderate, perhaps more candid, than 
myself. For my own part, I do not pretend 
to understand those prudent forms of 
decorum, those gentle rules of discretion, 
which ]some men endeavour to unite with 
the conduct of the greatest and most hazard- 
ous affairs. Engaged in the defence of an 
honourable cause, I would take a decisive 
part. — I should scorn to provide for a future 
retreat, or to keep terms with a man, who 
preserves no measures with the public. 



^ A writer in the Public Advertiser, who em- 
ployed the signature of Modestus, and is once 
noticed by Junius himself, and occasionally by 
him under some one of his auxiliary signatures, 
published in the same newspaper a counter- 
epistle to the King, but it does not appear to 
have attracted much attention. It was the pe- 
culiar misfortune of the administration of the 
period before us, to be more ruined by their own 
writers than their own misdeeds. The date of 
this letter of Modestus is Dec. 23, 1769. — Edit. 

" The duke had now resigned the office of first 
lord of the Treasury, harassed and worn out by 



Neither the abject submission of deserting 
his post in the hour of danger, nor even the 
sacred shield of cowardice, should protect 
him. 3 I would pursue him through life, 
dnd try the list exertion of my abilities to 
preserve the perishable infarhy of his name, 
d,nd make it irrimorta.1. 

What then, rny Lord, is this the event of 
all the sacrifices you have made to lord 
Bute's patronage, and to your own unfor- 
tunate ambition ? Was it for this you 
abandoned your earliest friendships, — the 
warmest connexions of your youth, and all 
those honourable engagements, by which 
you once solicited, and might have acquired, 
the esteem of youi country? Have you 
secured no recompense for such a waste of 
honour ? — Unhappy man ! what party will 
receive the common deserter of all parties ? 
Without a chent to flatter, without a friend 
to console you, and with only one com- 
panion from the honest house of Blooms- 
bury, you must now retire into a dreadful 
solitude. At the most active period of life, 
you must quit the busy scene, and conceal 
yourself from the world, if you would hope 
to save the wretched remains of a ruined 
reputation. The vices operate like age, — 
bring on disease before its time, and in the 
prime of youth leave the character broken 
and exhausted. 

Yet your conduct has been mysterious, 
as well as contemptible. Where is now 
that firmness, or obstinacy, so long boasted 
of by your friends, and acknowledged by 
your enemies ? We were taught to expect, 
that you would not leave the ruin of this 
country to be completed by other hands, 
but were determined either to gain a de- 
cisive victory over the constitution, or to 



the attacks of lord Chatham and his friends in 
parliament, and of Junius, and the petitioners 
and remonstrators from all parts of the country 
out of- parliament. He resigned abruptly, and 
left the cabinet in some confusion, lord Camden 
having not long before been compelled to leave 
the office of lord chancellor, and Mr Charles 
Yorke, who had been called to succeed him, 
having killed himself through mere political vex- 
ation. The duke of Grafton was succeeded by 
lord North. — Edit. 

3 Sacro tremuere timore. Every 

coward pretends to be planet-struck. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



223 



perish bravely at least behind the last dyke 
of the prerogative. You knew the danger, 
and might have been provided for it. You 
took sufficient time to prepare for a meeting 
with your parliament, to confirnl the nier- 
cenary fidehty of your dependantSj and to 
suggest to your sovereign a language 
suited to his dignity at least, if not to his 
benevolence and wisdom. Yet, while the 
whole kingdom was agitated with anxious 
expectation upon one great point, you 
meanly evaded the question, and, instead 
of the explicit firmness and decision of a 
king, gave us nothing but the misery of a 
ruined grazier,! and the whining piety of a 
Methodist. We had reason to expect, that 
notice would have been taken of the 
petitions which the king has received from 
the English nation ; and although I can 
conceive some personal motives for not 
yielding to them, I can find none, in com- 
mon prudence or decency, for treating them 
with contempt. Be assured, my Lord, the 
English people will not tamely submit to 
this unworthy treatment ; — they had a right 
to be heard, and their petitions, if not 
granted, deserved to be considered. What- 
ever be the real views and doctrine of a 
court, the sovereign should be taught to 
preserve some forms of attention to his 
subjects, and if he will not redress their 
grievances, not to make them a topic of 
jest and mockery among lords and ladies 
of the bedchamber. Injuries may be atoned 
for and forgiven ; but insults admit of no 
compensation. They degrade the mind in 
its own esteem, and force it to recover its 

^ There was something wonderfully pathetic 
in the mention of the hortted cattle. — Author. 

It was with this term that the speech from the 
throne may be said to have commenced — in allu- 
sion to the distemper among the horned cattle, 
a kind of murrain which had prevailed largely on 
the continent, and to prevent the importation 
of which into this country, various regulations 
had been adopted by the privy council during 
the recess. It was impossible for Junius to re- 
frain from this stroke of pleasantry upon the 
duke of Grafton, the inditer or composer of the 
royal speech. 

While the speech thus condescended to take 
notice of the veterinary concerns of the nation, 
the petitions and remonstrances that had been 



level by revenge. This neglect of the peti- 
tions was however a part of your original 
plan of government, nor will any conse- 
quences it has produced account for your 
deserting your sovereign, in the midst 
Of that distress, in which you arid your 2 
new friends had involved him. One would 
think, my Lord, you might have taken this 
spirited resolution before you had dissolved 
the last of those early connexions, which 
once, even in your own opinion, did honour 
to your youth ; — before you had obliged 
lord Granby to quit a service he was at- 
tached to ; — before you had discarded one 
chancellor,^ and killed another.'* To what 
an abject condition have you laboured to 
reduce the best of princes, when the un- 
happy man, who yields at last to such per- 
sonal instance and solicitation, as never 
can be fairly em.ployed against a subject, 
feels himself degraded by his compliance, 
and is unable to survive the disgraceful 
honours which his gracious sovereign had 
compelled him to accept ! He was a man 
of spirit, for he had a quick sense of shame, 
and death has redeemed his character. I 
know your Grace too well to appeal to your 
feelings upon this event ; but there is 
another heart, not yet, I hope, quite cal- 
lous to the touch of humanity, to which it 
ought to be a dreadful lesson for ever.^ 

Now, my Lord, let us consider the situa- 
tion to which you have conducted, and in 
which you have thought it advisable to 
abandon, your royal master. Whenever the 
people have complained, and nothing 
better could be said in defence of the mea- 
sures of government, it has been the fashion 



presented from the City, from Westminster, from 
Surry, York, and other parts of the kingdom, 
were purposely disregarded and treated with 
silent contempt. — Edit. 
^ The Bedford party. 

3 See note, p. 222. Lord Granby had re- 
signed about the time of the dismission of lord 
Camden, and for similar reasons. — Edit. 

4 Honourable Charles Yorke, brother of lord 
Hardwicke. See the note before referred to. — 
Edit. 

5 The most secret particulars of this detesta- 
ble transaction shall, in due time, be given to the 
public. The people shall know what kind of 
man they have to deal with. 



224 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to answer us, though not very fairly, with 
ah appeal to the private virtues of our 
sovereign. ' Has he not, to reheve the 
people, surrendered a considerable part of 
his revenue ? Has he not made the judges 
independent, by fixing them in their places 
for life ? ' — My Lord, we acknowledge the 
gracious principle, which gave birth to these 
concessions, and have nothing to regret, 
but that it has never been adhered to. At 
the end of seven years, we are loaded with 
a debt of above five hundred thousand 
pounds upon the civil list, and we now see 
the chancellor of Great Britain tyrannically 
forced out of his office, not for want of 
abilities, not for want of integrity, or of 
attention to his duty, but for delivering his 
honest opinion in parliament, upon the 
greatest constitutional question that has 
arisen since the revolution. ^ — We care not 
to whose private virtues you appeal ; the 
theory of such a government is falsehood 
and mockery ;— the practice is oppression. 
You have laboured then (though I confess 
to no purpose) to rob your master of the 
only plausible answer that ever was given 
in defence of his government, — of the 
opinion, which the people had conceived of 
his personal honour and integrity. — The 
duke of Bedford was more moderate than 
your Grace. He only forced his master to 
violate a solemn promise made to an indi- 
vidual.2 But you, my Lord, have success- 
fully extended your advice to every political, 
every moral engagement, that could bind 
either the magistrate or the man. The con- 
dition of a king is often miserable, but it 
required your Grace's abiUties to make it 



^ The question here alluded to, was the 
legality of the vote of the House of Commons, 
which seated Mr Luttrell for the county of Mid- 
dlesex. A great debate arose upon this subject 
in the House of Lords on the opening of the 
session, January 9, 1770, in which lord Camden 
expressed his decided disapprobation of the con- 
duct pursued by the Lower House, in the follow- 
ing energetic terms : — ' I consider the decision 
upon that affair, as a direct attack upon the 
first principles of the constitution ; and if, in the 
judicial exercise of my office, I were to pay any 
regard to that, or to any other such vote, passed 
in opposition to the known and estabhshed laws 
of the land, I should look upon myself as a 



contemptible. — •You will say perhaps that 
the faithful servants in whose hands you 
have left him, are able to retrieve his honour, 
and to support his government. You have 
publicly declared, even since your resigna- 
tion, that you approved of their measures, 
and adn\ired their characters, particularly 
that of the earl of Sandwich.^ What a 
pity it is, that, with all this approbation, 
you should think it necessary to separate 
yourself from such amiable companions. 
You forget, my Lord, that while you are 
lavish in the praise of men whom you 
desert, you are publicly opposing your con- 
duct to your opinions, and depriving your- 
self of the only plausible pretence you had 
for leaving your sovereign overwhelmed with 
distress ; I call it plausible, for, in truth, 
there is no reason whatsoever, less than the 
frowns of your master, that could justify a 
man of spirit for abandoning his post at a 
moment so critical and important ? It is in 
vain to evade the question. If you will not 
speak out, the pubUc have a right to judge 
from appearances. We are authorized to 
conclude, that you either differed from your 
colleagues, whose measures you still affect 
to defend, or that you thought the adminis- 
tration of the king's affairs no longer 
tenable. You are at liberty to chuse 
between the hypocrite and the coward. 
Your best friends are in doubt which way 
they shall incline. Your country unites the 
characters, and gives you credit for them 
both. For my own part, I see nothing in- 
consistent in your conduct. You began 
with betraying the people, — you conclude 
with betraying the king. 



traitor to my trust, and an enemy to my country.' 
This public avowal of an opinion, so contrary to 
the proceedings, if not to the views, of adminis- 
tration, was considered by them as a total de- 
fection ; and on the 17th of the same month, 
lord Camden received a message from the secre- 
tary of state's office, desiring, in his Majesty's 
name, that he would deliver up the seals that 
evening at seven o'clock ; which he did accord- 
ingly, into his Majesty's own hands. — Edit. 

Mr Stuart Mackenzie. — See the instance 
referred to in p. 160, note. — Edit. 

3 Lord Sandwich had been first lord of the 
Admiralty, and was again nominated to this post 
in 1771.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



225 



111 your treatment of particular persons, 
you have preserved the uniformity of your 
character. Even Mr Bradshaw declares, 
that no man was ever so ill used as himself. 
As to the provision i you have made for 
his family, he was entitled to it by the 
house he lives in. The successor of one 
chancellor might well pretend to be the 
rival of another. It is the breach of private 
friendship which touches Mr Bradshaw : 
and to say the truth, when a man of his 
rank and abilities had taken so active a 
part in your affairs, he ought not to have 
been let down at last with a miserable 
pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. 
Colonel Luttrell, Mr Onslow, and governor 
Burgoyne, were equally engaged with you, 
and have rather more reason to complain 
than JNTr Bradshaw. These are men, my 
Lord, whose friendship you should have 
adhered to on the same principle, on which 
you deserted lord Rockingham, lord Chat- 
ham, lord Camden, and the duke of Port- 
land. We can easily account for your vio- 
lating your engagements with men of honour, 
but why should you betray your natural 
connexions ? Why separate yourself from 
lord Sandwich, lord Cower, and ^Ir Rigby, 
or leave the three worthy gentlemen above 
mentioned to shift for themselves ? With 
all the fashionable indulgence of the times, 
this country does not abound in characters 
like theirs ; and you may find it a difficult 
matter to recruit the black catalogue of 
your friends. 

The recollection of the royal patent you 
sold to Mr Hine,2 obliges me to say a word 
in defence of a man whom you have taken 
the most dishonourable means to injure. I 
do not refer to the sham prosecution which 
you affected to carry on against him. On 

* A pension of ;CiSoo per annum, insured upon 
the 4 i-half per cents (he was too cunning to 
trust to Irish security), for the lives of himself 
and all his sons. This gentleman, who a very 
few years ago was clerk to a contractor for for- 
age, and afterwards exalted to a petty post in 
the war-office, thought it necessary (as soon as 
he was appointed secretary to the Treasury) to 
take that great house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, in 
which the earl of Northington had resided, 
while he was lord high chancellor of Great 



that ground, I doubt not he is prepared to 
meet you with tenfold recrimination, and 
set you at defiance. The injury you have 
done him affects his moral character. You 
knew that the offer to purchase the rever- 
sion of a place, which has heretofore been 
sold under a decree of the court of Chancery, 
however imprudent in his situation, would 
no way tend to cover him with that sort of 
guilt which you wished to fix upon him in the 
eyes of the world. You laboured then by 
every species of false suggestion, and even 
by publishing counterfeit letters, to have it 
understood, that he had proposed terms of 
accommodation to you, and had offered to 
abandon his principles, his party, and his 
friends. You consulted your own breast 
for a character of consummate treachery, 
and gave it to the public for that of Mr 
Vaughan. I think myself obliged to do this 
justice to an injured man, because I was 
deceived by the appearances throAvn out by 
your Grace, and have frequently spoken of 
his conduct with indignation. If he really 
be, what I think him, honest, though mis- 
taken, he \\-ill be happy in recovering his 
reputation, though at the expense of his 
understanding. Here, I see, the matter is 
likely to rest. Your Grace is afraid to 
carry on the prosecution. Mr Hine keeps 
quiet possession of his purchase ; and 
governor Burgoyne, relieved from the ap- 
prehension of refunding the money, sits 
down, for the remainder of his hfe, in- 
famous AND CONTENTED. 

I believe, my Lord, I may now take my 
leave of you for ever. You are no longer 
that resolute minister, who had spirit to 
support the most violent measures ; who 
compensated for the want of great and 
good quahties, by a brave determination 



Britain. As to the pension, lord North very 
solemnly assured the House of Commons, that 
no pension was ever so well deser\'ed as Mr 
Bradshaw's. — N. B. Lord Camden and sir 
JefFery Amherst are not near so well provided 
for, and sir Edward Hawke, who saved the 
state, retires with two thousand pounds a year, 
on the Irish establishment, from which he in fact 
receives less than Mr Bradshaw's pension. 

^ This subject is more particularly discussed 
in Letters XXXIII. and XXXIV.-Edit. 
15 



226 



LETTEkS OF JUNIUS. 



(which some people admired and relied 
on) to maintain himself without them; 
The reputation of obstinacy and persever- 
ance might have supplied the place of all 
the absent virtues. You have now added 
the last negative to your character, and 
meanly confessed that you are destitute of 
the common spirit of a man. Retire then, 
my I>ord, arid hide your blushes from the 
world ; ' for, with such a load of shame, 
even BLACK may change its colour. A 
mind such as yours, in the solitary hours of 
domestic enjoyment, may still find topics of 
consolation. You may find it in the me- 
mory of violated friendship ; in the afflic- 
tions of an accomplished prince, whom you 
have disgraced and deserted, and in the 
agitations of a great country, driven by 
yozir councils to the brink of destruction. 

The palm of ministerial firmness is now 
transferred to lord North. He tells us so him- 
self, with the plenitude of the ore rotimdo ;'^ 
and I am ready enough to believe, that, 
while he can keep his place, he will not 
easily be persuaded to resign it. Your 
Grace was the firm minister of yesterday : 
Lord North is the firm minister of to-day. 
To-morrow, perhaps, his Majesty, in his 
wisdom, may give us a rival for you both. 
You are too well acquainted with the tem- 
per of your late allies, to think it possible 
that lord North should be permitted to 
govern this country. If we may believe 
common fame, they have shown him their 
superiority already. His Majesty is in- 
deed too gracious to- insult his subjects, 
by chusing his first minister from among 
the domestics of the duke of Bedford. 
That would have been too gross an out- 
rage to the three kingdoms. Their pur- 
pose, however, is equally answered by 
pushing forward this unhappy figure, ^ and 
forcing it to bear the odium of measures, 
which they in reahty direct. Without im- 

^ This eloquent person has got as far as the 
discipline of Demosthenes. He constantly 
speaks with pebbles in his mouth, to improve his 
articulation. 

^ Those who had the pleasure of being ac- 
quainted with the amiable earl of Guildford, here 
spoken of, or have in any other way duly esti- 



mediately appearing to govern, they pos- 
sess the power, and distribute the emolu- 
ments, of government as they think proper. 
They still adhere to the spirit of that calcu- 
lation, which made Mr Luttrell represent- 
ative of Middlesex. Far from regretting 
your retreat, they assure us very gravely, 
that it increases the real strength of the 
ministry. According to this way of reason- 
ing, they will probably grow stronger, and 
more flourishing, every hour they exist ; 
for I think there is hardly a day passes in 
which some one or other of his Majesty's 
servants does not leave them to improve by 
the loss of his assistance. But, alas ! their 
countenances speak a different language. 
When the members drop off", the main 
body cannot be insensible of its approach- 
ing dissolution. Even the violence of their 
proceedings is a signal of despair. Like 
broken tenants, who have had warning to 
quit the premises, they curse their landlord, 
destroy the fixtures, throw every thing into 
confusion, and care not what mischief they 
do to the estate. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXVII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 March, 1770. 

I BELIEVE there is no man, how- 
ever indifferent about the interests of this 
country, who will not readily confess that 
the situation, to which we are now reduced, 
whether it has arisen from the violence of 
faction, or from an arbitrary system of 
government, justifies the most melancholy 
apprehensions, and calls for the exertion of 
whatever wisdom or vigour is left among 
us. The king's answer to the remonstrance 
of the city of London, ^ and the measures 



mated his virtues, will feel the bitterness of this 
sarcasm, though they must acknowledge its 
truth. — Edit. 

3 The city of London, the city and liberty of 
Westminster, the counties of Middlesex, Surry, 
&c., had presented petitions to his Majesty to 
dissolve the parhament, in consequence of the 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



227 



since adopted by the ministry, amount to a 
plain declaration that the principle, on 

illegal rejection of Wilkes by the Lower House, I 
after having been returned for the fourth time as \ 
a knight of the shire for the county of Middlesex. | 
These petitions had not been graciously received ; ■ 
and the petitioners next assumed a bolder tone, I 
and approached the throne with ref/ioustrafices ! 
upon the answers that had been returned to 
them. The remonstrance presented by the city j 
of Westminster is contained in note to Private 
Letter, No. 22. The remonstrance of the Lord 
Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery, here referred to, 
was, after some difficulty, presented to his Ma- 
jesty, Mar. 14, 1770. For the particulars of this 
dispute, see Editor's note to Miscellaneous Let- 
ter, No. LXX. The following is a copy of the 
remonstrance, &c. 

TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 

The humble Address, Remonstrance, and Peti- 
tion, of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and 
Livery of the city of London, in Common 
Hall assembled. 

' May it please your Majesty, 

' We have alreadj' in our petition dutifully 
represented to your Majesty, the chief injuries 
we have sustained. We are unwilling to believe 
that your Majesty can slight the desires of your 
people, or be regardless of their affection, and 
deaf to their complaints. Yet their complaints 
remain unanswered ; their injuries are confirmed; 
and the only judge removeable at the pleasure 
of the crown, has been dismissed from his high 
office, for defending in parliament the law and 
the constitution. 

' We, therefore, venture once more to address 
ourselves to your INIajesty, as to the father of 
your people ; as to him who must be both able 
and willing to redress our grievances ; and we 
lepeat our application with the greater propriety, 
because we see the instruments of our wrongs, 
who have carried into execution the measures of 
which we complain, more particularly distin- 
guished by your Majesty's royal bounty and 
favour. 

* Under the same secret and malign influence, 
which through each successive administration 
has defeated every good, and suggested every 
bad intention, the majority of the House of 
Commons have deprived your people of their 
dearest rights. 

' They have done a deed more ruinous in its 
consequences than the levying of ship-money by 
Charles the First ; or the dispensing power 
assumed by James the Second. A deed, which 
must vitiate all the future proceedings of this 
parliament, for the acts of the legislature itself 
can no more be valid without a legal House of 
Commons, than without a legal prince upon the 
throne. 

'Representatives of the people are essential 
to the making of laws, and there is a time when 
it is morally demonstrable, that men cease to be 
representatives ; that time is now arrived : The 



which Mr Luttrell was seated in the House 
of Commons, is to be supported in all its 

present House of Commons do not represent the 
people. 

'We owe to your Majesty an obedience un- 
der the restrictions of the laws for the calling 
and duration of parliaments ; and your Majesty 
owes to us, that our representation, free from 
the force of arms or corruption, should be pre- 
served to us in parliament. It was for this we 
successfully struggled under James the Second ; 
for this we seated, and have faithfully supported, 
your Majesty's family on the throne : The 
people have been invariably uniform in their 
object, though the diff'erent mode of attack has 
called for a different defence. 

' Under James the Second, they complained 
that the sitting of parliament was interrupted, 
because it was not corruptly subservient to his 
designs : We complain now, that the sitting of 
this parliament is not interrupted, because it is 
corruptedly subservient to the designs of your 
Majesty's ministers. Had the parliament, under 
James the Second been as submissive to his 
commands, as the parliament is at this day to the 
dictates of a minister; instead of clamours for 
its meeting, the nation would have rung, as now, 
with outcries for its dissolution. 

' The forms of the constitution, like those of 
religion, were not established for the form's sake, 
but for the substance ; and we call GOD and 
men to witness, that as we do not owe our liberty 
to those nice and subtle distinctions, which places 
and pensions and lucrative employments have 
invented, so neither will we be deprived of it by 
them ; but as it was gained by the stern virtue 
of our ancestors, by the virtue of their descend- 
ants it shall be preserved. 

' Since, therefore, the misdeeds of your Ma- 
jesty's ministers, in violating the freedom of 
election, and depraving the noble constitution of 
parliaments, are notorious, as well as subversive 
of the fundamental laws and liberties of this 
realm ; and since your Majesty, both in honour 
and justice, is obliged inviolably to preserve 
them, according to the oath made to GOD and 
your subjects at your coronation : We your Ma- 
jesty's remonstrants assure ourselves, that your 
Majesty will restore the constitutional govern- 
ment and quiet of your people, by dissolving 
this parliament, and removing those evil ministers 
for ever from your councils.' 

To which His Majesty returned the following 
answer :. 

' I shall always be ready to receive the re- 
quests, and to listen to the complaints, of my 
subjects ; but it gives me great concern, to find 
that any of them should have been so far misled, 
as to ofl!'er me an address and remonstrance, the 
contents of which I cannot but consider as disre- 
spectful to me, injurious to my parliament, and 
irreconcileable to the principles of the constitu- 
tion. 

' I have ever made the law of the land the rule 
of my conduct, esteeming it my chief glory to 



228 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



consequences, and carried to its utmost 
extent. The. same spirit, which violated 

reign over a free people : with this view, I have 
always been careful, as well to execute faithfully 
the trust reposed in me, as to avoid even the ap- 
pearance of invading any of those powers which 
the constitution has placed in other hands. It is 
only by persevering in such a conduct, that I can 
either discharge my own duty, or secure to my 
subjects the free enjoyment of those rights which 
my family were called to defend, and, while I act 
upon these principles, I shall have a right to 
expect, and I am confident I shall continue to 
receive, the steady and affectionate support of 
my people.' 

There was at the same time a declaration 
against the remonstrance, drawn up and sub- 
scribed by the aldermen on the ministerial side, 
and the following address to his Majesty was 
jointly presented by both Houses of Parliament. 

The humble Address of the Right Honourable 
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Com- 
mons, in Parliament assembled, presented to 
His Majesty on Friday the 23rd day of March, 
1770. 

* Most gracious Sovereign, 

'We your Majesty's most dutiful and faith- 
ful subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Tem- 
poral, and Commons cf Great Britain, in parlia- 
ment assembled, having taken into consideration 
the address lately presented to your Majesty 
under the title of ' The humble Address, Re- 
monstrance, and Petition of the Lord Mayor, 
Aldermen, and Livery of the City of London, in 
Common Hall assembled,' together with the 
answer which your Majesty was pleased to make 
to the same ; think ourselves indispensably 
obliged, upon this occasion, to express to your 
Majesty the extreme concern and indignation 
which we feel at finding that an application has 
been made to your Majesty, in terms so little 
corresponding with that grateful and affectionate 
respect which your Majesty is so justly intitled 
to from all your subjects, at the same time as- 
persing and calumniating one of the branches of 
the legislature, and expressly denying the legality 
of the present parliament, and the validity of its 
proceedings. 

' To present petitions to the throne has at all 
times been the undoubted right of the subjects of 
this realm. The free enjoyment of that right 
was one of the many blessings restored by the 
Revolution, and contmued to us, in its fullest 
extent, under the princes of your Majesty's illus- 
trious house : And as we are duly sensible of its 
value and importance, it is with the deepest con- 
cern that we now see the exercise of it so grossly 
perverted, by being applied to the purpose, not 
of preserving, but of overturning the constitution, 
and of propagating doctrines, which, if generally 
adopted, must be fatal to the peace of the king- 
dom, and which tend to the subversion of all 
lawful authority. 

'Your Majesty, we acknowledge with grati- 



the freedom of election, now invades the 
declaration and bill of rights, and threatens 



tude, has ever shown the most tender regard to 
the rights of your people, not only in the exer- 
cise of your own power, but in your care to pre- 
serve from every degree of infringement or 
violation the powers intrusted to others. And we 
beg leave to return your Majesty our unfeigned 
thanks for the fresh proof you have now given us, 
of your determination to persevere in your ad- 
herence to the principles of the constitution. 

' Permit us also to assure your Majesty, that 
it is with the highest satisfaction we see your 
Majesty expressing so just a confidence in your 
people. In whatever unjustifiable excesses some 
few misguided persons may in this instance have 
been seduced to join, j'our Majesty's subjects in 
general are too sensible of what they owe both 
to your Majesty and to your illustrious family, 
ever to be capable of approaching your Majesty 
with any other sentiments than those of the most 
entire respect and affection ; and they under- 
stand too well their own true interests to wish 
to loosen the bands of obedience to the laws, and 
of due subordination to lawful authority. We 
are therefore fully persuaded that your Majesty's 
people, as well as your parliament, will reject 
with disdain every insidious suggestion of those 
ill-designing men, who are in reality undermining 
the public liberty, under the specious pretence of 
zeal for its preservation ; and that your Majes- 
ty's attention to maintain the liberties of your 
subjects inviolate, which you esteem your chief 
glory, will, upon every occasion, prove the sure 
means of strength to your Majesty, and secure 
to you that zealous and effectual support^ which 
none but a free people can bestow.' 

His Majesty's Answer. 

' My Lords and Gentlemen, I return you 
many thanks for this very loyal and dutiful ad- 
dress. It is with great satisfaction that I receive 
from my parliament so grateful an acknowledg- 
ment of my tender regard for the rights of my 
subjects. Be assured that I shall continue to 
adhere to the true principles of our excellent 
constitution ; from which I cannot deviate with- 
out justly forfeiting the affections of a free 
people.' 

The city in its corporate capacity, however, 
dissatisfied with his Majesty's reply, and still 
more so with the notice which had been taken of 
its remonstrance in parliament, ventured to draw 
up and present another address and remon- 
strance, which was done on the ensuing May 23, 
and ran as follows : 

TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 

The humble Address, Remonstrance, and Pe- 
tition, of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and 
Commons of the City of London, in Common 
Council assembled. 

' May it please your Majesty, 
'When your Majesty's most faithful subjects, 
the citizens of London, whose loyalty and affec- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



229 



to punish the subject for exercising a privi- 
lege, hitherto undisputed, of petitioning 



tion has been so often and so effectually proved 
and experienced by the illustrious house of 
Brunswick, are labouring under the weight of 
that displeasure, which your Majesty has been 
advised to lay upon them, in the answer given 
from the throne to their late humble application, 
we feel ourselves constrained with all humility 
to approach the royal father of his people. 

' Conscious, Sire, of the purest sentiments of 
veneration which they entertain for your Ma- 
jest3''s person, vve are deeply concerned that 
what the law allows, and the constitution teaches, 
hath been misconstrued into disrespect to your 
Majesty, by the instruments of that influence 
which shakes the realm. 

' Perplexed and astonished as we are, by the 
awful sentence of censure, lately passed upon 
the citizens of London, in your Majesty's answer 
from the throne, we cannot, without surrendering 
all that is dear to Englishmen, forbear most 
humbly to supplicate, that your Majest}^ will 
deign to grant a more favoiu'able interpretation 
to this dutiful though persevering claim to our 
invaded birthrights ; nothing doubting, that the 
benignity of your Majesty's nature will, to our 
unspeakable comfort, at length break through all 
the secret and visible machinations, to which the 
city of London owes its late severe repulse, and 
that your kingly justice, and fatherly tenderness, 
will disclaim the malignant and pernicious advice 
which suggested the answer we deplore ; an 
advice of most dangerous tendency, in as much 
as thereby the exercise of the clearest rights of 
the subject, namely to petition the king for 
redress of grievances, to complain of the viola- 
tion of the freedom of election, and to pray dis- 
solution of parliament, to point out mal-practices 
in administration, and to urge the removal of 
evil ministers, hath, by the generality of one 
compendious word, been indiscriminately checked 
with reprimand ; and your Majesty's afflicted 
citizens of London have heard from the throne 
itself, that the contents of their humble address, 
remonstrance, and petition, laying their com- 
plaints and injuries at the feet of their sovereign, 
cannot but be considered by your Majesty, as 
disrespectful to yourself, injurious to your par- 
liament, and irreconcileable to the principles of 
the constitution. 

'Your Majesty cannot disapprove that we 
here assert the clearest principles of the con- 
stitution, against the insidious attempt of evil 
counsellors, to perplex, confound, and shake 
them. We are determined to abide by those 
rights and liberties, which our forefathers bravely 
vindicated at the ever-memorable revolution, 
and which their sons will always resolutely de- 
fend : We therefore now renew, at the foot of: 
the throne, our claim to the indispensable right , 
of the subject, a full, free, and uhmutilated par- 
liament, legally chosen in all its members : A I 
right, which this House of Commons have mani- 
festly violated, depriving, at their will and plea- '' 
sure, the county of Middlesex of one of its legal j 



the crown. The grievances of the people 
are aggravated by insults ; their complaints 



representatives, and arbitrarily nominating, '^.s a 
knight of the shire, a person not elected by a 
majority of the freeholders. As the only con- 
stitutional means of reparation now left for the 
injured electors of Great Britain, we implore, 
with most urgent suppUcation, the dissolution of 
this present parliament, the removal of evil min- 
isters, and the total extinction of that fatal 
influence which has caused such a national dis- 
content. In the mean time, Sire, we offer our 
constant prayers to heaven, that your IN'Iajesty 
may reign, as kings can only reign, in and by the 
hearts of a loyal, dutiful, and free people.' 

His Majesty's Answer, delivered the 23rd May, 
1770. 

' I should have been wanting to the public, as 
well as to myself, if I had not expressed my dis- 
satisfaction at the late address. 

' My sentiments on that subject continue the 
same, and I should ill deserve to be considered 
as the father of my people, if I should suffer 
myself to be prevailed upon to make such an use 
of my prerogative, as I cannot but think incon- 
sistent with the interest, and dangerous to the 
constitution, of the kingdom.' 

The lord mayor then addressed his Majesty in 
the following words : 

' Most gracious Sovereign, 

'Will your Majesty be pleased so far to con- 
descend as to permit the mayor of your loyal 
city of London, to declare in your roj^al pre- 
sence, on behalf of his fellow-citizens, how much 
the bare apprehension of your Majesty's dis- 
pleasure would at all times affect their minds. 
The declaration of that displeasure has already 
filled them with inexpressible anxiety and with 
the deepest affliction. Permit me. Sire, to assure 
your Majesty, that your Majesty has not in all 
your dominions any subjects more faithful, more 
dutiful, or more affectionate to your Majesty's 
person and family, or more ready to sacrifice 
their lives and fortunes in the maintenance of the 
true honour and dignity of your crown. 

' We do therefore, with the greatest humility 
and submission, most earnestly supplicate your 
Majest3% that you will not dismiss us from your 
presence, without expressing a more favourable 
opinion of your faithful citizens, and without 
some comfort, without some prospect at least of 
redress. 

' Permit me. Sire, farther to observe, that 
whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter 
endeavour, by false insinuations and suggestions, 
to alienate your Majesty's affections from your 
loyal subjects in general, and from the city of 
London in particular, and to withdraw your con- 
fidence in, and regard for, your people, is an 
enemy to 3^our Majesty's person and family, a 
violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of 
our happy constitution, as it was established at 
the glorious revolution.' 



230 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



not merely disregarded, but checked by- 
authority ; and every one of those acts, 
against which they remonstrated, confirmed 
by the king's decisive approbation. At 
such a rnoment, no honest man will remain 
silent or inactive. However distinguished 
by rank or property, in the rights of free- 
dom we are all equal. As we are English- 
men, the least considerable man among us 
has an interest, equal to the proudest 
nobleman, in the laws and constitution of 
his country, and is equally called upon to 
make a generous contribution in support of 
them ; — whether it be the heart to conceive, 
the understanding to direct, or the hand to 
execute. It is a common cause, in which 
we are all interested, in which we should 
all be engaged. The man who deserts it at 
this alarming crisis, is an enemy to his 
country, and, what I think of infinitely less 
importance, a traitor to his sovereign. 
The subject, who is truly loyal to the chief 
magistrate, will neither advise nor submit 
to arbitrary measures. The city of London 
have given an example, which, I doubt not, 
will be followed by the whole kingdom. 
The noble spirit of the metropolis is the 
life-blood of the state, collected at the 
heart : from that point it circulates, with 
health and vigour, through every artery of 
the constitution. The time is come when 
the body of the English people must assert 
their own cause : conscious of their strength, 
and animated by a sense of their duty, 
they will not surrender their birthright to 
ministers, parliaments, or kings. 

The city of London have expressed their 
sentiments with freedom and firmness ; 
they have spoken truth boldly ; and, in 
whatever light their remonstrance may be 
represented by courtiers, I defy the most 
subtle lawyer in this country to point out a 
single instance, in which they have exceed- 
ed the truth. Even that assertion, which 
we are told is most offensive to parliament, 
in the theory of the English constitution, is 
strictly true. If any part of the representa- 
tive body be not chosen by the people, 

Mr Beckford was at this time lord mayor, and 
it is this reply which the corporation has had 



that part vitiates and corrupts the whole. 
If there be a defect in the representation of 
the people, that power, which alone is 
equal to the making of laws in this country, 
is not complete, and the acts of parhament, 
under that circumstance, are not the acts 
of a pure and entire legislature. I speak 
of the theory of our constitution ; and 
whatever difficulties or inconveniences may 
attend the practice, I am ready to main- 
tain, that, as far as the fact deviates from 
the principle, so far the practice is vicious 
and corrupt. I have not heard a question 
raised upon any other part of the remon- 
strance. That the principle, on which the 
Middlesex election was determined, is more 
pernicious in its effects, than either the 
levying of ship-money by Charles the First, 
or the suspending power assumed by his 
son, will hardly be disputed by any man 
who understands or wishes well to the 
English constitution. It is not an act of 
open violence done by the king, or any 
direct and palpable breach of the laws 
attempted by his minister, that can ever 
endanger the liberties of this country. 
Against such a king or minister the people 
would immediately take the alarm, and all 
parties unite to oppose him. The laws 
may be grossly violated in particular in- 
stances, without any direct attack upon the 
whole system. Facts of that kind stand 
alone ; they are attributed to necessity, not 
defended upon principle. We can never 
be really in danger, until the forms of par- 
liament are made use of to destroy the 
substance of our civil and political liberties ; 
— until parhament itself betrays its trust, 
by contributing to establish new principles 
of government, and employing the very 
weapons committed to it by the collective 
body, to stab the constitution. 

As for the terms of the remonstrance, I 
presume it will not be affirmed, by any 
person less polished than a gentleman 
usher, that this is a season for compliments. 
Our gracious king indeed is abundantly 
civil to himself. Instead of an answer to a 

engraven beneath the statue erected to his me- 
mory at the West end of Guildhall.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



231 



petition, his Majesty very gracefully pro- 
nounces his own paneg}'ric ; and I confess, 
that, as far as his personal behaviour, or 
the royal purity of his intentions, is con- 
cerned, the truth of _ those declarations, 
which the minister has drawn up for his 
master, cannot decently be disputed. In 
every other respect, I affirm, that they are 
absolutely unsupported, either in argument 
or fact. I must add too, that supposing 
the speech were otherwise unexceptionable, 
it is not a direct answer to the petition of 
the city. His IMajesty is pleased to say, 
that he is always ready to receive the re- 
quests of his subjects ; yet the sheriffs were 
twice sent back with an excuse, and it was 
certainly debated in council, whether or no 
the magistrates of the city of London should 
be admitted to an audience. Whether the 
remonstrance be or be not injurious to par- 
liament, is the very question between the 
parhament and the people, and such a 
question as cannot be decided by the asser- 
tion of a third party, however respectable. 
That the petitioning for a dissolution of 



^ See Letters LVII. and LXVII. and notes.— 
Edit. 

^ See p. 149, note. — Edit. 

3 Previous to the riot which took place IMay 
ID, 1768, as noticed in Miscellaneous Letter, No. 
XXIV., the following letter was issued by 
lord Barrington, to which Mr "Wilkes wrote an 
introduction, as noticed in Letter XI., an act 
which formed a part of the offence for which that 
gentleman was e.xpelled the House of Commons. 
Curious as this letter is, it has not been preserved 
even in the Annual Register. 
Copy. 

Sir, Si James's, April x-j, t.-j6?>. 

Having already signified the king's plea- 
sure to the lord-lieutenant of the county in 
which you reside, with regard to the measures 
to be taken in general for preserving the peace, 
at a time that so very riotous a disposition has 
discovered itself among the common people, I 
make no doubt but that either some steps 
have, or will immediately be taken by hina on 
that head ; and, I taike it for granted, that as 
chairman of the sessions, 3'ou will meet the gen- 
tlemen, who act in the commission of the peace 
for the Borough of Southwark and East Hun- 
dred of Brixton, to consult together, and fix upon 
some plan for securing the public tranquillity 
against any mischiefs which may happen, should 
the same indecent spirit of tumult and disorder 
v.'hich has appeared in the city and liberties of 
Westminster, spread itself to those parts which 
are within the line of your duty ; and though I 



parliament is irreconcileable with the prin- 
ciples of the constitution is a new doctrine. 
His Majesty perhaps has not been inform- 
ed, that the House of Commons themselves 
have, by a formal resolution, admitted it to 
be the right of the subject. His Majesty 
proceeds to assure us that he has made the 
laws the rule of his conduct. — Was it in 
ordering or permitting his ministers to ap- 
prehend Air Wilkes by a general warrant ? 
— Was it in suffering his ministers to revive 
the obsolete maxim of nullum tempzis to 
rob the duke of Portland of his property, 
and thereby give a decisive turn to a county 
election?! Was it in erecting a chamber 
consultation of surgeons, with authority to 
examine into and supersede the legal ver- 
dict of a jur)'?- Or did his Majesty con- 
sult the laws of this country, when he per- 
mitted his secretary of state to declare, that 
whenever the civil magistrate is trifled with, 
a military force must be sent for, wifhoiit 
ike delay of a mojnejit, and effectually em- 
ployed ? 3 Or was it in the barbarous ex- 
actness with which this illegal, inhuman 



am persuaded it is unnecessary to suggest to you, 
or the gentlemen who will meet you, any part of 
your duty on such an occasion, yet, after the recent 
alarming instances of riot and confusion, I can't 
help apprizing you, that much will depend upon 
the preventive measures which you shall, in con- 
junction with the other gentlemen in the com- 
mission of the peace, take, upon your meeting ; 
and much is expected from the vigilance and 
activity with which such measures will be carried 
into execution. When I inform you, that every 
possible precaution is taken to support the 
dignity of your office ; that upon application 
from the civil magistrate at the Tower, the 
Savoy, or the War Office, he will find a military 
force ready to march to his assistance, and to 
act according as he shall find it expedient and 
necessary ; I need not add, that if the public 
peace is not preserved, and if any riotous pro- 
ceedings, which may happen, are not suppressed, 
the blame will, most probably, be imputed to a 
want of prudent and spirited conduct in the civil 
magistrate. As I have no reason to doubt your 
caution and discretion in not calling for troops 
till they are wanted : so, on the other hand, I 
hope you will not delay a moment calling for 
their aid, and making use of them effectually, 
where there is occasion ; that occasion alwaj's 
presents itself, when the civil power is trifled 
with and insulted, nor can a military force ever 
be employed to a more constitutional purpose, 
than in support of the authority and dignity of 
magistracy. — Barrington. 



232 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



doctrine was carried into execution? — If 
his Majesty had recollected these facts, I 
think he would never have said, at least 
with any reference to the measures of his 
government, that he had made the laws 
the rule of his conduct. To talk of pre- 
serving the affections, or relying on the 
support of, his subjects, while he continues 
to act upon these principles, is indeed pay- 
ing a compliment to their loyalty, which I 
hope they have too much spirit and under- 
standing to deserve. 

His Majesty, we are told, is not only 
punctual in the performance of his own 
duty, but careful not to assume any of 
those powers which the constitution has 
placed in other hands. Admitting this last 
assertion to be strictly true, it is no way to 
the purpose. The city of London have not 
desired the king to assume a power placed 
in other hands. If they had, I should 
hope to see the person who dared to pre- 
sent such a petition immediately impeach- 



P.S. I have, for the greater caution, sent copies 
of this letter to the members for the Borough, 
and Mr Pownall. If you should have received 
no directions from lord Onslow for a meeting, 
you will consider this as sufficient authority 
for that purpose. 
Daniel Ponton, Esq., Chairman of the 
Quarter Sessions, Lambeth. — Edit. 
^ 'When his Majesty had done reading his 
speech, the lord mayor, &c. had the honour of 
kissing his Majesty's hand ; after which, as they 
•were withdrawing, his Majesty instantly turned 
round to his cnunitrs, and burst out a laughing. 
' Ne7-o fiddled, whilst Rome was burning.' — ■ 
John Horne. Author. 

Mr Horne having furnished the printer of the 
Public Advertiser with a detail of the proceed- 
ings on presenting the address of the 14th of 
March, concluded it with the whole of the words 
quoted by Junius as the foregoing note, for 
which a prosecution was commenced against the 
printer, but which was not persevered in. 

Mr Horne also sent to the printer the particu- 
lars which occurred on presenting the remon- 
strance of the 14th of May at St James's, to 
which he added as follows : — • 

N.B. The writer of the above account, having 
given great oifence to some persons by inserting 
in a former paper, that — Nero fiddled, whilst 
Rome was burning — and an Information having 
been filed by the attorney-general against the 
printer in consequence, takes this opportunity to 
declare, that it was not his intention to falsify 
an historical fact, or to give offence to better 
memories ; he hopes therefore it will be admit- 



ed.i They solicit their sovereign to exert 
that constitutional authority, which the 
laws have vested in him, for the benefit of 
his subjects. They call upon him to make 
use of his lawful prerogative in a case, 
which our laws evidently supposed might 
happen, since they have provided for it by 
trusting the sovereign with a discretionary 
power to dissolve the parliament. This 
request will, I am confident, be supported 
by remonstrances from all parts of the 
kingdom. His Majesty will find at last, 
that this is the sense of his people, and 
that it is not his interest to support either 
ministry or parliament, at the hazard of a 
breach with the collective body of his sub- 
jects. — That he is the king of a free peo- 
ple, is indeed his greatest glory. That he 
may long continue the king of a free peo- 
ple, is the second wish that animates my 
heart. The first is, THAT THE PEOPLE 
MAY BE FEEE.2 

JUNIUS. 



ted as a recompence. If he now declares that 
Nero did not fiddle whilst Rome was burning. — 
Edit. 

^ As the Letters of Junius have been by 
some attributed to Mr Dunning, and as the be- 
ginning of the third paragraph of that gentle- 
man's answer to the chamberlain of London, on 
being presented with the freedom of the city, 
has a striking resemblance to the structure and 
sentiments with which this letter concludes, the 
reader will excuse its insertion in this place, 
though it has no reference to the subject of the 
letter itself. 

' Mr Chamberlain, 

' I am to request the favour of you to represent 
me to the lord mayor, aldermen, and commons 
of London, as duly sensible of the great, but, I 
must add, unmerited honour they have done me ; 
for surely, Sir, there is little merit in acting on 
one's own opinions, and I cannot, with a safe 
conscience, pretend to any other: 

' Convinced as I am, that our happy constitu- 
tion has given us the most perfect system of 
government the world has ever seen, and that 
it is therefore our common interest and duty to 
oppose every practice, and combat every princi- 
ple, that tends to impair it, any other conduct 
than that which the city of London has been 
pleased to distinguish by Its approbation, must, 
in my own judgment, have rendered me equally 
unworthy of the office I had then the honour to 
hold through his Majesty's favour, and of the 
trust reposed in me as one of the representatives 
of the people. 

' To discharge faithfully the duties of what- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



233 



LETTER XXXVIIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 3 April, 1770. 

In my last letter I offered you my 
opinion of the truth and propriety of his 
Majesty's answer to the city of London, 
considering it merely as the speech of a 
minister, drawn up in his own defence, and 
delivered, as usual, by the chief magistrate. 
I would separate, as much as possible, the 
king's personal character and behaviour 
from the acts of the present government. 
I wish it to be understood that his Majesty 
had in effect no more concern in the sub- 
stance of what he said, than sir James 
Hodges 1 had in the remonstrance, and that 
as sir James, in virtue of his office, was 
obliged to speak the sentiments of the peo- 
ple, his Majesty might think himself bound, 
by the same official obligation, to give a 
graceful utterance to the sentiments of his 
minister. The cold formality of a well- 
repeated lesson, is widely distant from the 
animated expression of the heart. 

This distinction, however, is only true 
with respect to the measure itself. The 
consequences of it reach beyond the min- 
ister, and materially affect his Majesty's 
honour. In their own nature they are for- 
midable enough to alarm a man of pru- 
dence, and disgraceful enough to afflict a 
man of spirit. A subject, whose sincere 
attachment to his Majesty's person and 
family is founded upon rational principles, 
will not, in the present conjuncture, be 
scrupulous of alarming, or even of afflicting, 
his sovereign. I know there is another 
sort of loyalty, of which his Majesty has 
had plentiful experience. When the loyalty 



ever situation ive are placed in, is among the 
first objects of Ji07iest ambition. To be thoztght 
to have done so, I consider as a second. Conse- 
quently I cannot but feel a high degree of satis- 
faction in this testimony of the good opinion of 
so respectable a body as the citizens of London ; 
and it is no inconsiderable addition to that satis- 
faction, that it gives me a nearer relation to men 
who have been usually among the foremost to 
assert and maintain those legal and constitutional 



of Tories, Jacobites, and Scotchmen, has 
once taken possession of an unhappy prince, 
it seldom leaves him without accomplishing 
his destruction. When the poison of their 
doctrines has tainted the natural benevo- 
lence of his disposition, when their in- 
sidious counsels have corrupted the stamina 
of his government, what antidote can re- 
store him to his political health and honour, 
but the firm sincerity of his Enghsh sub- 
jects? 

It has not been usual in this country, at 
least since the days of Charles the First, to 
see the sovereign personally at variance, or 
engaged in a direct altercation, with his 
subjects. Acts of grace and indulgence are 
wisely appropriated to him, and should 
constantly be performed by himself. He 
never should appear but in an amiable 
light to his subjects. Even in France, as 
long as any ideas of a limited monarchy 
were thought worth preserving, it was a 
maxim, that no man should leave the royal 
presence discontented. They have lost or 
renounced the moderate principles of their 
government, and now, when their parlia- 
ments venture to remonstrate, the tyrant 
comes forward, and answers absolutely for 
himself. The spirit of their present con- 
stitution requires that the king should be 
feared, and the principle, I believe, is 
tolerably supported by the fact. But, in 
our political system, the theory is at vari- 
ance with the practice, for the king should 
be beloved. Measures of greater severity 
may, indeed, in some circumstances, be 
necessary ; but the minister who advises, 
should take the execution and odium of 
them entirely upon himself. He not only 
betrays his master, but violates the spirit of 
the English constitution, when he exposes 
the chief magistrate to the personal hatred 

rights which are essential to the general interests 
of the community. 

' I have nothing to add, sir, but my acknow- 
ledgments to you for the obliging expressions 
you have used in executing vour commission. 

March ■2-], •iT]^. J. DUNNING.'— Edit. 

^ Town-clerk to the city of London, who 
signed for the corporation the city petition and 
remonstrance. — Edit. 



234 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



or contempt of his subjects. When we speak 
of the firmness of government, we mean an 
uniform system of measures, deliberately 
adopted, and resolutely maintained by the 
servants of the crown, not a peevish asperity 
in the language or behaviour of the sove- 
reign. The government of a weak, irreso- 
lute monarch, may be wise, moderate, and 
firm ; — that of an obstinate, capricious 
prince, on the contrary, may be feeble, 
undetermined, and relaxed. The reputation 
of public measures depends upon the min- 
ister, who is responsible, not upon the king, 
whose private opinions are not supposed to 
have any weight against the advice of his 
counsel, whose personal authority should 
therefore never be interposed in public 
affairs. — This, I believe, is true, constitu- 
tional doctrine. But, for a moment, let us 
suppose it false. Let it be taken for 
granted, that an occasion may arise, in 
which a king of England shall be com- 
pelled to take upon himself the ungrateful 
office of rejecting the petitions and cen- 
suring the conduct of his subjects ; and let 
the City remonstrance be supposed to have 
created so extraordinary an occasion. On 
this principle, which I presume no friend of 
administration will dispute, let the wisdom 
and spirit of the ministry be examined. 
They advise the king to hazard his dignity, 
by a positive declaration of his own senti- 
ments ; — they suggest to him a language 
full of severity and reproach. What fol- 
lows? When his Majesty had taken so 
decisive a part in support of his ministry 
and parliament, he had a right to expect 
from them a reciprocal demonstration of 
firmness in their own cause, and of zeal for 
his honour. He had reason to expect (and 
such, I doubt not, were the blustering 
promises of lord North) that the persons. 



^ Lord North. This graceful minister is oddly 
constructed. His tongue is a little too big for his 
mouth, and his eyes a great deal too big for their 
sockets. Every part of his person sets natural 
proportion at defiance. At this present writing, 
his he^d is supposed to be much too heavy for 
his shoulders. 

^ It was at first intended by the cabinet that 
the House should be requested to unite with his 
Majesty in punishing the lord mayor and sheriffs 



whom he had been advised to charge with 
having failed in their respect to him, with 
having injured parliament, and violated the 
principles of the constitution, should not 
have been permitted to escape without some 
severe marks of the displeasure and venge- 
ance of parliament. As the matter stands, 
the minister, after placing his sovereign in 
the most unfavourable light to his subjects, 
and after attempting to fix the ridicule and 
odium of his own precipitate measures 
upon the royal character, leaves him a 
solitary figure upon the scene, to recall, if 
he can, or to compensate, by future com- 
pliances, for one unhappy demonstration of 
ill-supported firmness, and ineffectual re- 
sentment. As a man of spirit, his Majesty 
cannot but be sensible, that the lofty terms 
in which he was persuaded to reprimand 
the city, when united with the silly con- 
clusion of the business, resemble the pomp 
of a mock-tragedy, where the most pathetic 
sentiments, and even the sufferings of the 
hero, are calculated for derision. 

Such has been the boasted firmness and 
consistency of a minister, i whose appear- 
ance in the House of Commons was thought 
essential to the king's service ;^whose pre- 
sence was to influence every division : — who 
had a voice to persuade, an eye to pene- 
trate, a gesture to command. The reputa- 
tion of these great qualities has been fatal 
to his friends. The little dignity of Mr 
Ellis has been committed. The mine was 
sunk ; — combustibles provided, and Wel- 
bore Ellis, the Guy Faux of the fable, 
waited only for the signal of command. 
All of a sudden the country gentlemen dis- 
cover how grossly they have been deceived ; 
■ — the minister's heart fails him, the grand 
plot is defeated in a moment, and poor Mr 
Ellis and his motion taken into custody. 
From the event of Friday last ^ one would 



for the insult offered to the sovereign by their 
petition and remonstrance ; and a vote to this 
effect was to have been moved by Mr Ellis, 
afterwards lord Mendip, and in the author's own 
note called Mannikin, on account of his diminu- 
tive stature. But it was subsequently deter- 
mined to have recourse to less violent proceed- 
ings ; and the conduct of the metropolitan 
corporation was, in consequence, merely cen- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



235 



imagine that some fatality hung over this 
gentleman. Whether he makes or sup- 
presses a motion, he is equally sure of his 
disgrace. But the comple.xion of the times 
will suffer no man to, be vice- treasurer of 
Ireland with impunity.^ 

I do not mean to express the smallest 
anxiety for the minister's reputation. He 
acts separately for himself, and the most 
shameful inconsistency may perhaps be no 
disgrace to him. But when the sovereign, 
who represents the majesty of the state, 
appears in person, his dignity should be 
supported. The occasion should be im- 
portant ; — the plan well considered ; — the 
execution steady and consistent. My zeal 
for his Majesty's real honour compels me 
to assert, that it has been too much the 
system of the present reign, to introduce 
him personaUy, either to act for or to 
defend his servants. They persuade him 
to do what is properly their business, and 
desert him in the midst of it. 2 Yet this is 
an mconvenience to which he must for ever 
be exposed, while he adheres to a ministry 
divided among themselves, or unequal in 
credit and ability to the great task they 
have undertaken. Instead of reserving the 
interposition of the royal personage, as the 
last resource of government, their weakness 
obliges them to apply it to every ordinary 
occasion, and to render it cheap and com- 
mon in the opinion of the people. Instead 
of supporting their master, they look to him 
for support ; and for the emolument of re- 
maining one day more in office, care not 



sured by a vote of the House, and by the 
preceding address to his Majesty from both 
Houses, apprizing him of such censure : a 
measure which was followed by another address 
from the city, as noticed in note, p, 228. — 
Edit. 

^ About this time the courtiers talked of no- 
thing but a bill of pains and penalties against the 
lord mayor and sheriffs, or impeachment at the 
least. Little mannlki?t Ellis told the king that, 
if the business were left to his management, he 
would engage to do wonders. It was thought 
very odd that a motion of so much importance 
should be entrusted to the most contemptible 
little piece of machinery in the whole kingdom. 
His honest zeal however was disappointed. The 
minister took fright, and at the very instant that 



how much his sacred character is prosti- 
tuted and dishonoured. 

If I thought it possible for this paper to 
reach the closet, I would venture to appeal 
at once to his Majesty's judgment. I would 
ask him, but in the most respectful terms, 
' As you are a young man. Sir, who ought 
to have a life of happiness in prospect, — as 
you are a husband, — as you are a father, 
[your filial duties I own have been reli- 
giously performed,] is it bona fide for your 
interest or your honour to sacrifice your do- 
mestic tranquilhty, and to five in a perpetual 
disagreement with your people, merely to 
preserve such a chain of beings as North, 
Barrington, Weymouth, Gower, Ellis, Ons- 
low, Rigby, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich? 
Their very names are a satire upon all go- 
vernment, and I defy the gravest of your 
chaplains to read the catalogue without 
laughing." 

For my own part. Sir, I have always con- 
sidered addresses from parliament as a 
fashionable, unmeaning formality. Usurp- 
ers, idiots, and tyrants have been success- 
ively complimented with almost the same 
professions of duty and affection. But let 
us suppose them to mean exactly what they 
profess. The consequences deserve to be 
considered. Either the sovereign is a man 
of high spirit and dangerous ambition, 
ready to take advantage of the treachery of 
his parHament, ready to accept of the sur- 
render they make him of the public liberty ; 
— or he is a mild undesigning prince, who, 
provided they indulge him with a little 
state and pageantry, would of himself in- 



llttle Ellis was going to open, sent him an order 
to sit down. All their magnanimous threats 
ended in a ridiculous vote of censure, and a still 
more ridiculous address to the king. This 
shameful desertion so afflicted the generous 
mind of George the Third, that he was obliged to 
live upon potatoes for three weeks, to keep off a 
malignant fever.— Poor man ! — qtiis taliafando 
temperet a lacry7nis ! — Author. 

See Private Letter, No*. 33. — Edit. 

^ After a certain person had succeeded in 
cajoling Mr Yorke, he told the duke of Grafton, 
with a witty smile, ' My Lord, you may kill the 
next Percy yourself.' — N.B. He had but that 
instant wiped the tears away^ which overcame 
Mr Yorke.— Edit. 



236 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



tend no mischief. On the first supposition, 
it must soon be decided by the sword, 
whether tlie constitution should be lost or 
preserved. On the second, a prince no way 
qualified for the execution of a great and 
hazardous enterprise, and without any 
determined object in view, may neverthe- 
less be driven into such desperate mea- 
sures, as may lead directly to his ruin, or 
disgrace himself by a shameful fluctuation 
between the extremes of violence at one 
moment, and timidity at another. The 
minister perhaps may have reason to be 
satisfied with the success of the present 
hour, and with the profits of his employ- 
ment. He is the tenant of the day, and has 
no interest in the inheritance. The sove- 
reign himself is bound by other obligations, 
and ought to look forward to a superior, a 
permanent interest. His paternal tender- 
ness should remind him, how many host- 
ages he has given to society. The ties of 
nature come powerfully in aid of oaths and 
protestations. The father, who considers 
his own precarious state of health, and the 
possible hazard of a long minority, will 
wish to see the family estate free and unen- 
cumbered. i What is the dignity of the 
crown, though it were really maintained ; — 
what is the honour of parliament supposing 
it could exist without any foundation of in- 
tegrity and justice ; — or what is the vain 
reputation of firmness, even if the scheme 
of government were uniform and consistent, 
— compared with the heartfelt affections of 
the people, with the happiness and security 
of the royal family, or even with the grate- 
ful acclamations of the populace ! What- 
ever style of contempt may be adopted by 
ministers or parliaments, no man sincerely 
despises the voice of the English nation. 
The House of Commons are only interpret- 
ers, whose duty it is to convey the sense of 
the people faithfully to the crown. If the 
interpretation be false or imperfect, the 
constituent powers are called upon to de- 
liver their own sentiments. Their speech is 
rude, but intelligible ; — their gestures fierce, 



* Every true friend of the house of Brunswick 
sees with affliction, how rapidly some of the 



but full of explanation. Perplexed by 
sophistries, their honest eloquence rises 
into action. The first appeal was to the 
integrity of their representatives ;— the 
second to the king's justice ; — the last 
argument of the people, whenever they 
have recourse to it, will carry more perhaps 
than persuasion to parliament, or supplica- 
tion to the throne. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXIX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 28 May, 1770. 

While parUament was sitting, it 
would neither have been safe, nor perhaps 
quite regular, to oifer any opinion to the 
public upon the justice or wisdom of their 
proceedings. To pronounce fairly upon their 
conduct, it was necessary to wait untii we 
could consider, in one view, the beginning, 
progress, and conclusion of their delibera- 
tions. The cause of the public was under- 
taken and supported by men, whose abili- 
ties and united authority, to say nothing of 
the advantageous ground they stood on, 
might well be thought sufficient to deter- 
mine a popular question in favour of the 
people. Neither was the House of Com- 
mons so absolutely engaged in defence of 
the ministry, or even of their own resolu- 
tions, but that they might have paid some 
decent regard to the known disposition of 
their constituents, and, without any dis- 
honour to their firmness, might have re- 
tracted an opinion, too hastily adopted, 
when they saw the alarm it had created, 
and how strongly it was opposed by the 
general sense of the nation. The ministry 
too would have consulted their own imme- 
diate interest, in making some concession 
satisfactory to the moderate part of the 
people. Without touching the fact, they 
might have consented to guard against, or 
give up, the dangerous principle on which 



principal branches of the family have dropped 
off. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



237 



it was established. In this state of things, 
I thinlc it was highly improbable at the 
beginning of the session, that the com- 
plaints of the people upon a matter, which, 
in their apprehension at least, immediately 
affected the life of the constitution, would 
be treated with as much contempt by their 
own representatives, and by the House of 
Lords, as they had been by the other 
branch of the legislature. Despairing of 
their integrity, we had a right to expect 
something from their prudence, and some- 
thing from their fears. The duke of 
Grafton certainly did not foresee to what 
an extent the corruption of a parliament 
might be carried. He thought, perhaps, that 
there was still some portion of shame or 
virtue left in the majority of the House of 
Commons, or that there was a line in pub- 
lic prostitution beyond which they would 
scruple to proceed. Had the young man 
been a Httle more practised in the world, or 
had he ventured to measure the characters 
of other men by his own, he would not 
have been so easily discouraged. 

The prorogation of parliament naturally 
calls upon us to review their proceedings, 
and to consider the condition in which 
they have left the kingdom. I do not ques- 
tion but they have done what is usually 
called the king's business, much to his 
Majesty's satisfaction. 1 We have only to 
lament, that in consequence of a system 
introduced or revived in the present reign, 
this kind of merit should be very consistent 
with the neglect of every duty they owe to 
the nation. The interval between the 
opening of the last and the close of the 
former session was longer than usual. 2" 
Whatever were the views of the minister, 
in deferring the meeting of parliament, 
sufficient time was certainly given to every 
member of the House of Commons, to 
look back upon the steps he had taken, and 
the consequences they had produced. The 
zeal of party, the violence of personal ani- 



^ ' The temper with which you have conducted 
all your proceedings, has given me great satis- 
faction.' King's speech on closing the session 
of parliament, May 19, 1770. — Edit. 



mosities, and the heat of contention had 
leisure to subside. From that period, what- 
ever resolution they took was deliberate 
and prepense. In the preceding session, 
the dependants of the ministry had affected 
to believe, that the final determination of 
the question would have satisfied the 
nation, or at least put a stop to their com- 
plaints ; as if the certainty of an evil could 
diminish the sense of it, or the nature of in- 
justice could be altered by decision. But 
they found the people of England were in 
a temper very distant from submission ; 
and, although it was contended that the 
House of Commons could not themselves 
reverse a resolution, which had the force 
and effect of a judicial sentence, there 
were other constitutional expedients, which 
would have given a security against any 
similar attempts for the future. The gener- 
al proposition, in which the whole country 
had an interest, might have been reduced 
to a particular fact, in which Mr Wilkes 
and Mr Luttrell would alone have been 
concerned. The House of Lords might 
interpose ;— the king might dissolve the 
parliament ; — or, if every other resource 
failed, there still lay a grand constitutional 
writ of error, in behalf of the people, from 
the decision of one court to the wisdom of 
the whole legislature. Every one of these 
remedies has been successively attempted. 
The people performed iheir part with dig- 
nity, spirit, and perseverance. For many 
months his Majesty heard nothing from his 
subjects but the language of complaint and 
resentment ; — unhappily for this country, 
it was the daily triumph of his courtiers 
that he heard it with an indifference 
approaching to contempt. 

The House of Commons having assumed 
a power unknown to the constitution, were 
determined not merely to support it in the 
single instance in question, but to maintain 
the doctrine in its utmost extent, and to 
establish the fact as a precedent in law, to 
be apphed in whatever manner his Majesty's 



^ There was no autumnal session this year. 
Parliament did not meet till January g, 1769-70. 

— Edit. 



23§ 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



servants shottld Hereafter think fit. Their 
proceedings upon this occasion are a strong 
proof that a decision, in the first instance 
illegal and unjust, can only be supported by 
a continuation of falsehood and injustice. 
To support their forrrter resolutions) they 
\vere obliged to violate some of the best 
known and established rules of the House. 
In one instance they went so far as to 
declare, in open defiance of truth and 
common sense, that it was not the rule of 
the House to divide a complicated question, 
at the request of a member.^ But after 
trampling upon the laws of the land, it was 
not wonderful that they should treat the 
private regulations of their own assembly 
with equal disregard. The speaker, being 
young in office, began with pretending 
ignorance, and ended with deciding for the 
ministry. We were not surprised at the 
decision ; but he hesitated and blushed at 
his own baseness, 2 and every man was 
astonished. 3 

The interest of the public was vigorously 
supported in the House of Lords. Their 
right to defend the constitution against any 



^ This extravagant resolution appears in the 
votes of the House ; but, in the minutes of the 
committees, the instances of resolutions contrary 
to law and truth, or of refusals to acknowledge 
law and truth when proposed to them, are in- 
numerable.— Author. 

The following is a more particular explanation 
of the fact alluded to : 

The House having on the 30th of January, 
1770, resolved itself into a committee on the 
state of the nation, the ensuing declaration was 
proposed, 'That in the exercise of its juris- 
diction, the House ought to judge of elections by 
the law of the land, and by the custom of parlia- 
ment, which is part of that law.' This being the 
first of a string of resolutions that were to lead 
to a condemnation of the principles on which the 
determination of the Middlesex election had 
taken place, it was contended on the part of the 
ministry that, according to the usae^e of the 
House, the entire series could not be divided ; to 
which the speaker having assented, the ministry 
next moved that the whole of the intended reso- 
lutions, except the first, should be omitted, and 
that the following amendment should be added 
to it : — ' And that the judgment of this House in 
the case of John Wilkes was agreeable to the 
law of the land, and fully authorized by the 
practice of parliament.' This was carried by 224 
to 180.— Edit. 

" Sir Fletcher Norton was now speaker of the 



encroachment of the other estates, and the 
necessity of exerting it at this period, wais 
urged to them with every argument that 
could be supposed to influence the heart or 
the understanding. But it soon appeared 
that they had already taken their part, and 
were determined to support the House of 
Commons, not only at the expense of truth 
and decency, but even by a surrender of 
their own most important rights. Instead 
of performing that duty which the constitu- 
tion expects from them, in return for. the 
dignity and independence of their station, in 
return for the hereditary share it has given 
them in the legislature, the majority of them 
made common cause with the other House in 
oppressing the people, and established an- 
other doctrine as false in itself, and if possi- 
ble more pernicious to the constitution, than 
that on which the Middlesex election was 
determined. By resolving ' that they had 
no right to impeach a judgment of the 
House of Commons in any case whatsoever, 
where that House has a competent jurisdic- 
tion,' 4 they in effect gave up that constitu- 

House of Commons. He had commenced his 
political career as a violent Whig ; but for some 
time past had exhibited the most complete 
tergiversation, and had been as warm in the 
cause of Toryism as the warmest of its oldest 
espousers. He was elected to the chair, Jan- 
uary 22, 1770, on the resignation nf sir John 
Gust, through ill health, and who died on the 
same day that sir Fletcher succeeded him.— 
Edit. 

3 When the king first made it a measure of his 
government to destroy Mr Wilkes, and when for 
this purpose it was necessary to run down privi- 
lege, sir Fletcher Norton, with his usual prosti- 
tuted effrontery, assured the House of Commons, 
that he should regard one of their votes no more 
than a resolution of so many drunken porters. 
This is the very lawyer, whom Ben Jonson 
describes in the following lines : 

' Gives forked counsel ; takes provoking gold, 
On either hafid, and puts it up. 
So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue, 
And lojid withal, that would not wag, nor 

scarce 
Lie still, without a fee.' 

4 A motion similar to that recited in note ', 
above, was made by the marquis of Rocking- 
ham, in the House of Lords, declaring, ' That 
the law of the land and the established customs 
of parliament were the sole rule of determination 
in all cases of election,' which having been lost, 
was met by one to the purport of that before 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



239 



tional check and reciprocal controul of one 
branch of the legislature over the other, 
which is perhaps the greatest and most im- 
portant object provided' for by the division 
(jf the whole legislative povf-er into three 
estates ; and now, let the judicial decisions 
of the House of Commons be ever so ex- 
trd.vagant, let their declarations of the law 
be evdr so flagrantly false, arbitrary, and 
oppressive to the subject, the House of 
Lords have imposed a slavish silence upon 
themselves ; — they cannot interpose, — they 
6annot protect the subject, — they cannot 
defend the laws of their country. A con- 
cession so extraordinary in itself, so con- 
tradictory to the principles of their own 
institution, cannot but alarm the most un- 
suspecting mind. We may well conclude, 
that the Lords would hardly have yielded 
so much to the other House, without the 
certainty of a compensation, which can 
only be made to them at the expense of the 
people. The arbitrary power they have 
assumed of imposing fines, and committing 
during pleasure, will now be exercised in its 
full extent. 1 The House of Commons are 
too much in their debt to question or in- 
terrupt their proceedings. The crown too, 
we may be well assured, will lose nothing 
in this new distribution of power. After 
declaring, that to petition for a dissolution 
of parUament is irreconcileable with the 
principles of the constitution, 2 his Majesty 
has reason to expect that some extraordin- 
ary compliment will be returned to the 
royal prerogative. The three branches of 



quoted, which was carried by a large majority ; 
in consequence of which, two most strong and 
able protests were entered upon the journals of 
the House, which were signed by no less than 
forty-two peers. In the last of these, the pro- 
testing lords pledged themselves to the public, 
that they would avail themselves, as far as in 
them lay, of every right and every power with 
which the constitution had armed them for the 
good of the whole, in order to obtain full relief 
in behalf of the injured electors of Great Britain. 
— Edit. 

^ The man who resists and overcomes this 
iniquitous power, assumed by the Lords, must be 
supported by the whole people. We have the 
laws of our side, and want nothing but an intre- 
pid leader. When such a man stands forth, let 



the legislature seem to treat their separate 
rights and interests as the Roman T.'-iunl- 
virs did their friends. They reciproeally 
sacrifice them to the animosities of each 
other, and establish a detestable union 
among themselves; upon the ruin of the 
laws and liberty of the commonwealth. 

Through the whole proceedings of the 
House of Commons in this sessiouj there is 
an apparent, a palpable consciousness of 
guilt, which has prevented their daring to 
assert their own dignity, where it has been 
immediately and grossly attacked. In the 
course of doctor Musgrave's examination, 
he said every thing that can be conceived 
mortifying to individuals, or offensive to the 
House. They voted his information frivol- 
ous, but they were awed by his firmness 
and integrity, and sunk under it.^ The 
terms in which the sale of a patent to Mr 
Hine were communicated to the public,* 
naturally called for a parliamentary enquiry. 
The integrity of the House of Commons 
was directly impeached ; but they had not 
courage to move in their own vindication, 
because the enquiry would have been fatal to 
colonel Burgoyne and the duke of Grafton. 
When sir George Saville branded them with 
the name of traitors to their constituents, 
when the lord mayor, the sheriffs, and Mr 
Trecothick expressly avowed and main- 
tained every part of the city remonstrance, 
why did they tamely submit to be insulted ? 
Why did they not immediately expel those 
refractory members ? Conscious of the 
motives on which they had acted, theypru- 



the nation look to it. It is not his cause, but 
our own. — Author. 

fcjee Private Letters, Nos. 80, 81, and 82, in 
which Wilkes gives an intimation of an intended 
attack upon the House of Lords. — Edit. 

2 See editor's note to Letter XXXVIL, p. 
228. — Edit. 

3 The examination of this firm, honest man, is 
printed {or A lmo7i. The reader will find it a 
most curious and a most interesting tract. 
Doctor Musgrave, with no other support but 
truth and his own firmness, resisted and over- 
came the whole House of Commons. — Author. 

For a further account of the transaction re- 
ferred to, see editor's note to Letter XXIII., p. 
188.— Edit. 

4 See Letter XXXIII.— Edit. 



24o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



den tly preferred infamy to danger, and were 
better prepared to meet the contempt than 
to rouse the indignation of the whole 
people. Had they expelled those five 
members,! the consequences of the new 
doctrine of incapacitation would have come 
immediately home to every man. The 
truth of it would then have been fairly 
tried, without any reference to Mr Wilkes's 
private character, or the dignity of the 
House, or the obstinacy of one particular 
county. These topics, I know, have had 
their weight with men, who affecting a 
character of moderation, in reahty consult 
nothing but their own immediate ease ; — 
who are weak enough to acquiesce under a 
flagrant violation of the laws, when it does 
not directly touch themselves, and care not 
what injustice is practised upon a man, 
whose moral character they piously think 
themselves obliged to condemn. In any 
other circumstances, the House of Com- 
mons must have forfeited all their credit 
and dignity, if, after such gross provoca- 
tion, they had permitted those five gentle- 
men to sit any longer among them. We 
should then have seen and felt the opera- 
tion of a precedent, which is represented to 
be perfectly barren and harmless. But 
there is a set of men in this country, whose 



^ The five members alluded to are sir George 
Saville, Mr Beckford, Mr Townshend, Mr Saw- 
bridge, and Mr Trecothick.— Edit. 

^ A law had lately passed in the Irish legisla- 
ture, rendering the Irish parliaments octennial : 
— prior to this period, they had been of longer 
duration, and it was against the will of the court 
that the law was enacted. The parhament that 
passed it was prorogued immediately afterwards, 
and then dissolved, under the hope of a more 
tractable parliament in future. The minister, 
however, was deceived : for the new parliament 
objected, shortly after its meeting, to passing 
the proposed money-bill, in consequence of its 
having originated in the privy-council, instead of 
in the House of Commons. Lord Townshend, 
the lord-lieutenant, on December 2, entered a 
protest on the journals of the Upper House 
against the rejection of this bill ; and intended 
to have done the same on the journals of the 
House of Commons ; but the latter would not 
suffer him. — Edit. 

3 The different schemes devised for making 
the colonies amenable to the legislature of 
Great. Britain, are glanced at in note S to 
Letter XII., p. 160. After the repeal of the 



understandings measure the violation of 
law by the magnitude of the instance, not 
by the important consequences which flow 
directly from the principle, and the minis- 
ter, I presume, did not think it safe to 
quicken their apprehension too soon. Had 
Mr Hampden reasoned and acted hke the 
moderate men of these days, instead of 
hazarding his whole fortune in a law-suit 
with the crown, he would have quietly paid 
the twenty shillings demanded of him, — 
the Stuart family would probably have 
continued upon the throne, and, at this 
moment, the imposition of ship-money 
would have been an acknowledged pre- 
rogative of the crown. 

What then has been the business of the 
session, after voting the supplies, and con- 
firming the determination of the Middlesex 
election? The extraordinary prorogation 
of the Irish parliament, 2 and the just dis- 
contents of that kingdom, have been passed 
by without notice. Neither the general 
situation of our colonies, nor that particular 
distress which forced the inhabitants of 
Boston to take up arms in their defence, 
have been thought worthy of a moment's 
consideration. 3 In the repeal of those 
acts, which were most offensive to America, 
the parhament have done every thing but 
remove the oifence. They have relinquish- 

Stamp Act, it was tried whether the Americans 
would submit to certain custom-house duties, as 
upon glass, red-lead, tea, &c. But it was the 
pri7iciple itself that was obnoxious to the Ameri- 
cans : and hence this attempt was as strenuously 
resisted as the former. These latter duties were 
in consequence all relinquished, excepting that 
on tea. The Americans, however, would not 
submit to this mortification, which as much in- 
fringed upon their principle, as if no part what- 
ever had been relinquished : government never- 
theless insisted upon retaining this impost, and 
the result is well known. Yet hostilities maybe 
said to have commenced in the first instance at 
Boston, from a private dispute between two or 
three soldiers quartered there, and a party of 
rope-makers. The soldiers in this quarrel were 
joined by their comrades, and even by their 
oflScers, and the rope-makers by the inhabitants 
of the town : in the scufifle that ensued, the 
officers were struck, the soldiers fired, and 
several persons in the mob were killed or 
wounded. Captain Preston, the commanding 
officer, was afterwards tried but acquitted. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



241 



ed the revenue, but judiciously taken care 
to preserve the contention. It is not pre- 
tended that the continuance of the tea duty 
is to produce any direct benefit whatsoever 
to the mother country.' What is it then 
but an odious, unprofitable exertion of a 
speculative right, and fixing a badge of 
slavery upon the Americans, without service 
to their masters ? But it has pleased God 
to give us a ministry and a parliament, 
who are neither to be persuaded by argu- 
ment, nor instructed by experience. 

Lord North, I presume, will not claim 
an extraordinary merit from any thing he 
has done this year in the improvement or 
application of the revenue. A great opera- 
tion, directed to an important object, 
though it should fail of success, marks the 
genius and elevates the character of a min- 
ister. A poor contracted understanding 
deals in little schemes, which dishonour 
him if they fail, and do him no credit when 
they succeed. Lord North had fortunately 
the means in his possession of reducing all 
the four per cents at once.^ The failure of 
his first enterprise in finance is not half so 
disgraceful to his reputation as a minister, 
as tlie enterprise itself is injurious to the 
public. Instead of striking one decisive 
blow, which would have cleared the mar- 
ket at once, upon terms proportioned to 
the price of the four per cents six weeks 
ago, he has tampered with a pitiful poi'tion 
of a commodity, which ought never to have 
been touched but in gross ; — he has given 



^ The stock denominated three per cents, had 
arisen from a loan of two millions raised by 
government in the 29th of Geo. 11., for which a 
lottery and redeemable annuities at three pounds 
ten shillings per cent, had been granted and 
secured. Of the annuities one quarter had been 
paid off, and the sinking fund, which was 
charged with the remainder, was at this time so 
fully capable of liquidating it, that a notice to 
this effect had been given by an order of the 
House of Commons, dated April 26, 1770. 

In consequence of this flourishing state of the 
three per cents, into which almost every one 
was buying, the four per cents had been much 
forsaken, and had sunk below their level. Lord 
North, by a small bonus, might have induced all 
the holders of this stock to have transferred it 
into three per cents instead of receiving four, 
which would have been a great relief to the 



notice to the holders of that stock, of a 
design formed by government to prevail 
upon them to surrender it by degrees, con- 
sequently has warned them to hold up and 
enhance the price ; — so that the plan of re- 
ducing the four per cents must either be 
dropped entirely, or continued with an in- 
creasing disadvantage to the public. The 
minister's sagacity has served to raise the 
value of the thing he means to purchase, 
and to sink that of the three per cents, 
which it is his purpose to sell. In effect, 
he has contrived to make it the interest of 
the proprietor of four per cents to sell out 
and buy three per cents in the market, 
rather than subscribe his stock upon any 
terras, that can possibly be offered by go- 
vernment. 

The state of the nation leads us naturally 
to consider the situation of the king. The 
prorogation of parliament has the effect of 
a temporary dissolution. The odium of 
measures adopted by the collective body 
sits lightly upon the separate members, 
who composed it. They retire into sum- 
mer quarters, and rest from the disgraceful 
labours of the campaign. But as for the 
sovereign, it is not so with him. He has 
a permanent existence in this country ; 
He cannot withdraw himself from the 
complaints, the discontents, the reproaches 
of his subjects. They pursue him to his 
retirement, and invade his domestic hap- 
piness, when no address can be obtained 
from an obsequious parliament to en- 
courage or console him. In other times, 

public debt ; but, though the minister was open 
to this conviction, he went to work with a timid 
hand, and took so much time to complete what 
he did intend, as to forfeit every advantage he 
might at first have derived. Instead of making 
a proposal of this kind to embrace the whole of 
the four per cents, he proposed to convert only 
two millions and a quarter of them into three 
per cents, and that the bonus should be a lottery 
for five hundred thousand pounds, divided into 
fifty thousand tickets, of which every holder of 
a hundred pounds capital should be entitled, for 
this supposed difference of fourteen pounds ster- 
ling, to two of such lottery tickets. In the 
prospect of this scheme the four per cents began 
to rise at the expense of the three per cents, and 
the object, so far as regarded pecuniary advan- 
tage, was completely frustrated. — Edit. 
16 



242 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the interest of the king and people of Eng- 
land was, as it ought to be, entirely the 
same. A new system has not only been 
adopted in fact, but professed upon prin- 
ciple. Ministers are no longer the public 
servants of the state, but the private do- 
mestics of the sovereign. One particular 
class of men are permitted to call them- 
selves the king's friends, i as if the body of 
the people were the king's enemies ; or as 
if his Majesty looked for a source of con- 
solation in the attachment of a few favour- 
ites, against the general contempt and 
detestation of his subjects. Edward and 
Richard the Second made the same dis- 
tinction between the collective body of the 
people, and a contemptible party who sur- 
rounded the throne. The event of their 
mistaken conduct might have been a warn- 
ing to their successors. Yet the errors of 
those princes were not without excuse. 
They had as many false friends as our 
present gracious sovereign, and infinitely 
greater temptation to seduce them. They 
were neither sober, religious, nor demure. 
Intoxicated with pleasure, they v/asted 
their inheritance in pursuit of it. Their 
lives were like a rapid torrent, brilliant in 
prospect, though useless or dangerous in 
its course. In the dull, unanimated exist- 
ence of other princes, we see nothing but a 
sickly, stagnant water, which taints the 
atmosphere without fertilizing the soil. — 
The morality of a king is not to be mea- 
sured by vulgar rules. His situation is 
singular. There are faults which do him 
honour, and virtues that disgrace him. A 
faultless, insipid equality in his character, 
is neither capable of vice nor virtue in the 
extreme ; but it secures his submission to 
those persons, whom he has been accus- 

^ ' An ignorant, mercenary, and servile crew ; 
unanimous in evil, diligent in mischief, variable 
in principles, constant to flattery, talkers for 
liberty, but slaves to power ; — styling themselves 
the court party, and the prince's only friends.' — 
Davenant. 

^ Miss Kennedy. 

^ Matthew and Patrick Kennedy had been 
condemned to suffer death for the murder of 
John Bigby, a watchman. Their sister, Miss 
Kennedy, was a prostitute well known to many 



tomed to respect, and makes him a dan- 
gerous instrument of their ambition. Se- 
cluded from the world, attached from his 
infancy to one set of persons, and one set 
of ideas, he can neither open his heart to 
new connexions, nor his mind to better 
information. A character of this sort is 
the soil fittest to produce that obstinate 
bigotry in politics and religion, which be- 
gins with a meritorious sacrifice of the un- 
derstanding, and finally conducts the mon- 
arch and the martyr to the block. 

At any other period, I doubt not, the 
scandalous disorders which have been in- 
troduced into the government of all the 
dependencies of the empire, would have 
roused and engaged the attention of the 
public. The odious abuse and prostitution 
of the prerogative at home, — the uncon- 
stitutional employment of the military— 
the arbitrary fines and commitments by 
the House of Lords, and Court of King's 
Bench ; — the mercy of a chaste and pious 
Prince extended cheerfully to a wilful mur- 
derer, because that murderer is the brother 
of a common prostitute, 2 would, 1 think, 
at any other time, have excited universal 
indignation.' But the daring attack upon 
the constitution, in the Middlesex election, 
makes us callous and indifferent to inferior 
grievances. No man regards an eruption 
upon the surface, when the noble parts are 
invaded, and he feels a mortification ap- 
proaching to his heart. The free election 
of our representatives in parliament com- 
prehends, because it is, the source and 
security of every right and privilege of the 
English nation. The ministry have realized 
the compendious ideas of Caligula. They 
know that the liberty, the laws, and pro- 
perty of an Englishman have in truth but 



of the courtiers of the day, and her intercession 
availed to obtain for them, first a respite, and 
afterwards a pardon. The widow of Bigby, 
nevertheless, laid an appeal against the murder- 
ers ; and a new trial was appointed. The friends 
of Miss Kennedy, however, bought them off, by 
a present to the widow of three hundred and 
fifty pounds ; and, in consequence, she desisted 
from appearing against the prisoners when they 
were arraigned. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



243 



one neck, and that to violate the freedom 
of election strikes deeply at them all. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XL. 



TO LORD NORTH. 

My Lord, 22 Auo^. 1770. 

Mr Luttrell's services were the 
chief support and ornament of the duke of 
Grafton's administration. The honour of 
rewarding them was reserved for your 
Lordship. The duke, it seems, had con- 
tracted an obligation he was ashamed to 
acknowledge, and unable to acquit. You, 
ray Lord, had no scruples. You accepted 
of the succession with all its incumbrances, 
and have paid Mr Luttrell his legacy, at 
the hazard of ruining the estate. 

When this accomplished youth declared 
himself the champion of government, the 
world was busy in enquiring what honours 
or emoluments could be a sufficient recom- 
pense, to a young man of his rank and 
fortune, for submitting to mark his entrance 
into life with the universal contempt and 
detestation of his country. — His noble father 
had not been so precipitate. — To vacate 
his seat in parliament ; — to intrude upon a 
county in which he had no interest or con- 
nexion ; — to possess himself of another 
man's right, and to maintain it in defiance 
of public shame as well as justice, bespoke 
a degree of zeal or of depravity, which all the 
favour of a pious prince could hardly re- 
quite. I protest, my Lord, there is in this 
young man's conduct, a strain of prostitu- 
tion which, for its singularity, I cannot 
but admire. He has discovered a new line 
in the human character ; — he has degraded 



^ At this time he was only lieutenant-colonel. 
—Edit. 

^ He now says that his great object is the rank 
of colonel, and that he zui/l have it. 

3 This infamous transaction ought to be ex- 
plained to the public. Colonel Gisborne was 
quarter-master-general in Ireland. Lord Towns- 
hend persuades him to resign to a Scotch officer, 
one Fraser, and gives him the government of 
Kinsale. — Colonel Cuninghamc was adjutant- 
general in Ireland. Lord Townshcnd offers him 



even the name of Luttrell, and gratified 
his father's most sanguine expectations. 

The duke of Grafton, with every possible 
disposition to patronize this kind of merit, 
was contented with pronouncing colonel 
Luttrell's panegyric. ^ The gallant spirit, 
the disinterested zeal of the young adven- 
turer, were echoed through the House of 
Lords. His Grace repeatedly pledged him- 
self to the House, as an evidence of the 
purity of his friend Mr Luttrell's inten- 
tions ; — that he had engaged without any 
prospect of personal benefit, and that the 
idea of compensation would mortally offend 
him.* The noble duke could hardly be in 
earnest ; but he had lately quitted his em- 
ployment, and began to think it necessary 
to take some care of his reputation. At 
that very moment the Irish negotiation was 
j probably begun. — Come forward, thou 
worthy representative of lord Bute, and 
tell this insulted country, who advised the 
king to appoint Mr Luttrell adjutant- 
general to the army in Ireland. By what 
management was colonel Cuninghame pre- 
vailed on to resign his employment, and 
the obsequious Gisborne to accept of a 
pension for the government of Kinsale?' 
Was it an original stipulation with the 
Princess of Wales, or does he owe his 
preferment to your Lordship's partiaUty, or 
the duke of Bedford's friendship? My 
Lord, though it may not be possible to 
trace this measure to its source, we can 
follow the stream, and warn the country of 
its approaching destruction. The EngHsh 
nation must be roused, and put upon its 
guard. Mr Luttrell has already shown us 
how far he may be trusted, whenever an 
open attack is to be made upon the hber- 
ties of this country. I do not doubt that 
there is a deliberate plan formed. Your 



a pension, to induce him to resign to Luttrell. 
Cuninghame treats the ofifer with contempt. 
What's to be done ? poor Gisborne must move 
once more. — He accepts of a pension of ;^5oo a 
year, until a government of greater value shall 
become vacant. Colonel Cuninghame is made 
governor of Kinsale ; and Luttrell, at last, for 
whom the whole machinery is put in motion, be- 
comes adjutant-general, and in effect takes the 
command of the army in Ireland. 



244 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Lordship best knows by whom ; — the cor- 
ruption of the legislative body on this side — 
a military force on the other— and then, 
Farewell to England! It is impossible 
that any minister shall dare to advise the 
king to place such a man as Luttrell in the 
confidential post of adjutant-general, if 
there were not some secret purpose in view, 
which only such a man as Luttrell is fit to 
promote. The insult offered to the army in 
general is as gross as the outrage intended 
to the people of England. What ! Lieu- 
tenant-colonel Luttrell, to be adjutant- 
general of an army of sixteen thousand 
men ! One would think his Majesty's cam- 
paigns at Blackheath and Wimbledon 
might have taught him better. — I cannot 
help wishing, general Harvey joy of a col- 
league, who does so much honour to the 
employment. — But, my Lord, this measure 
is too daring to pass unnoticed, too dan- 
gerous to be received with indifference or 
submission. You shall not have time to 
new-model the Irish army. They will not 
submit to be garbled by colonel Luttrell. 
As a mischief to the English constitution 
(for he is not worth the name of enemy), 
they already detest him. As a boy, impu- 
dently thrust over their heads, they will 
receive him with indignation and contempt. 



^ A few days after this letter made its appear- 
ance, the writer sent the following article to the 
Printer of the Public Advertiser, which was in- 
serted according to its date. 

INTELLIGENCE EXTRAORDINARY. 

Sept. 7, 1770. 
Colonel Luttrell has resigned the post of 
adjutant-general in Ireland. The necessity of 
the times had left the minister no alternative, 
except the sacrifice of this imworthy tool of 
power, or of himself. The dismission is too ridi- 
culous either to deceive the public, or screen 
the guilty. Does colonel Luttrell expect to find 
a shelter from contempt byshunning the rewards 
of infamy ? A character so well established as 
his own, will render such resources needless. 
Does the minister console himself with any 
hopes of crushing the most severe enquiries, be- 
cause he has meanlj' rescinded this detestable 
promotion? The vanity of such dependences 
may be confirmed before the period of another 
session. As very few forms concurred to this 
appointment, except private commissions to a 
lord-lieutenant, we shall not be surprised at that 



—As for you, my Lord, who perhaps are 
no more than the blind, unhappy instru- 
ment of lord Bute and her royal highness 
the Princess of Wales, be assured that you 
shall be called upon to answer for the 
advice which has been given, and either 
discover your accomplices, or fall a sacri- 
fice to their security. 1 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLI. 

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD 
MANSFIELD.2 

My Lord, 14 Novemier, 1770, 

The appearance of this letter will 
attract the curiosity of the public, and 
command even your Lordship's attention. 
I am considerably in your debt, and shall 
endeavour, once for all, to balance the 
account. Accept of this address, my Lord, 
as a prologue to more important scenes, in 
which you will probably be called upon to 
act or suffer. 

You will not question my veracity, when 
I assure you that it has not been owing to 
any particular respect for your person that 
I have abstained from you so long. Besides 
the distress and danger with which the 
press is threatened, when your Lordship is 



effrontery which may hereafter deny the whole 
transaction: it is not, however, lost in ignorance, 
because the royal fiat had, purposely, delayed 
its progress through the offices of the secretaries 
of state. It never, perhaps, was intended that 
this circumstance should have been made public 
till the destruction of our rights had been at least 
more easily to be accomplished than it is at pre- 
sent. Let not this insulted country be for a 
moment off its guard. To make the blow secure, 
the dagger that is to wound the constitution will 
be as much as possible concealed until the 
instant that it strikes. From the intentions of 
administration every thing is to be dreaded ; 
their timidity, indeed, as in the present case, 
may draw a line, which, were they only to con- 
sult the violence of inclination, they might re- 
solve to pass, although the track were marked 
with horror, blood, and desolation. — Edit. 

^ In the envelope to this address, Junius 
makes the following observation. ' The inclosed, 
though begun within these few days, has been 
greatly laboured.' Private Letter, No. 24. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



245 



party, and the party is to be judge, I con- 
fess I have been deterred by the difficulty of 
the task. Our language has no term of re- 
proach, the mind has no idea of detestation, 
which has not already been happily appHed 
to you, and exhausted. — Ample justice has 
been done by abler pens than mine to the 
separate merits of your hfe and character. 
Let it be viy humble office to collect the 
scattered sweets, till their united virtue tor- 
tures the sense. 

Permit me to begin with paying a just 
tribute to Scotch sincerity, wherever I find 
it. I own I am not apt to confide in the 
professions of gentlemen of that country, 
and when they smile, I feel an involun- 
tary emotion to guard myself against mis- 
chief. With this general opinion of an 
ancient nation, I always thought it much to 
your Lordship's honour, that, in your earlier 
days, you were but httle infected with the 
prudence of your country. You had some 
original attachments, which you took every 
proper opportunity to acknowledge. The 
liberal spirit of youth prevailed over your 
native discretion. Your zeal in the cause of 
an unhappy prince was expressed with the 
sincerity of wine, and some of the solemni- 
ties of religion.! This, I conceive, is the 
most amiable point of view, in which your 
character has appeared. Like an honest 

^ This man was always a rank Jacobite. Lord 
Ravensworth produced the most satisfactory- 
evidence of his having frequently drunk the Pre- 
tender's health upon his knees. 

'■' This statement of lord Mansfield's immediate 
connexion with the Pretender's secretary has 
been disputed by some ; and the charge ad- 
vanced by lord Ravensworth of his having 
drunk the Pretender's health upon his knees 
was made the subject of an investigation before 
the Privy Council and the House of Lords, in 
the year 1753, which terminated in J\Ir Murray's 
acquittal, both tribunals declaring the charge to 
be a foul and disgraceful calumny. That lord 
Mansfield, however, lay under the public im- 
putation of being of the same blood as tlie Pre- 
tender's secretary is certain ; as, in a memorial, 
[which will be found in Dodington's Diary, p. 
441, London edit. 1809,] anonymously addressed 
to general Hawley, and written for the avowed 
purpose of procuring the solicitor-general's dis- 
mission, he is thus spoken of: — ' To have a 
Scotsman, of a most disaffected family, and 
aUied to the Pretender's Jirst 7ni?tister, con- 



man, you took that part in pohtics which 
might have been expected from your birth, 
education, country, and connexions. ^ There 
was something generous in your attach- 
ment to the banished house of Stuart. We 
! lament the mistakes of a good man, and do 
not begin to detest him until he affects to 
renoimce his principles. Why did you not 
adhere to that loyalty you once professed ? 
Why did you not follow the example of 
your worthy brother ? 3 With him, you 
might have shared in the honour of the 
Pretender's confidence — with him, you 
might have preserved the integrity of your 
character, and England, I think, might 
have spared you without regret. — Your 
friends will say, perhaps, that although you 
deserted the fortune of your liege lord, you 
have adhered firmly to the principles which 
drove his father from the throne ;— tlmt 
without openly supporting the person, you 
have done essential service to the cause, 
and consoled yourself for the loss of a 
favourite family, by reviving and establish- 
ing the maxims of their government. This 
is the way, in which a Scotchman's under- 
standing corrects the error of his heart. — 
My Lord, I acknowledge the truth of the 
defence, and can trace it through all your 
conduct. I see, through your whole life, 
one uniform plan to enlarge the power of 
the crown, at the expense of the liberty of 



suited in the education of the Prince of Wales, 
must tend to alarm and disgust the friends of the 
present royal family.' Dodington, who was 
intimate with lord Mansfield, then Mr Murray, 
no where contradicts the supposed connexion ; 
who, nevertheless, it is presumed, would have 
done so, if the assertion had not been true. 
Should the reader wish to satisfy himself more 
particularl}^ upon the subject, he will find it de- 
tailed at some length in various parts of the 
before-named diary. 

Mr Murray, when a student in the Temple, 
was an intimate acquaintance of a Mr Vernon, a 
rich Jacobite mercer on Ludgate-hill, and the 
toast above referred to is said to have been fre- 
quently drunk in the house of this gentleman, 
whether Mr Murray were ever present on such 
occasion or not. Mr Vernon on his death be- 
queathed to Mr Murray an estate in the counties 
of Chester and Derby. — Edit. 

3 Confidential secretary to the late Pretender. 
This circumstance confirmed the friendship be- 
tween the brothers. 



246 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS; 



the subject. To this object, your thoughts, 
words, and actions have been constantly 
directed. In contempt or ignorance of the 
common law of England, you have made it 
your study to introduce into the court, 
where you preside, maxims of jurispru- 
dence unknown to EngHshmen. The 
Roman code, the law of nations, and the 
opinion of foreign civilians, are your per- 
petual theme ; — but who ever heard you 
mention Magna Charta or the Bill of 
Rights with approbation or respect? By 
such treacherous arts, the noble simpHcity 
and free spirit of our Saxon laws were first 
corrupted. The Norman conquest was not 
complete, until Norman lawyers had intro- 
duced their laws, and reduced slavery to a 
system. — This one leading principle directs 
your interpretation of the laws, and ac- 
counts for your treatment of juries. It is 
not in poUtical questions only (for there the 
courtier might be forgiven), but let the 
cause be what it may, your understanding 
is equally on the rack, either to contract 
the power of the jury, or to mislead their 
judgment. For the truth of this assertion, 
I appeal to the doctrine you delivered in 
lord Grosvenor's cause. An action for 
criminal conversation being brought by a 
peer against a prince of the blood, 1 you were 
daring enough to tell the jury that, in fix- 
ing; the damages, they were to pay no 
regard to the quality or fortune of the par- 
ties ;— that it was a trial between A. and 
B. — that they were to consider the offence 
in a moral light only, and give no greater 



^ The action was brought by lord Grosvenor 
against the duke of Cumberland, for criminal 
conversation with lady Grosvenor ; and the 
cause in which lord Mansfield delivered the 
opinion here charged to him, was tried before 
his Lordship in the Court of King's Bench, July 
5, 1770. The damages were laid at one hundred 
thousand pounds : the verdict was for ten thou- 
sand pounds. The doctrine here justly objected 
against by Junius, has since been relinquished 
in our courts of justice, and his own substituted 
in its stead. — Edit. 

^ See an instance of the kind alluded to in 
Private Letter, No. 46, note ^— Edit. 

3 Judge Yates, who was now just dead, had 
twice publicly differed with the chief justice ; 
once about a question of real property, Perrin 
and Blake ; the other time in the famous dispute 



damages to a peer of the realnl, that! to the 
meanest mechanic; I shall riot attempt to 
refute a doctrine, which, if it was meant for 
law, carries falsehood and absurdity upon 
the face of it ; but, if it was meant for a 
declaration of your political creed, is clear 
and consistent. Ujider an arbitrary govern- 
ment, all ranks and distinctions are con- 
founded. The honour of a nobleman is no 
more considered than the reputation of a 
peasant, for, with different liveries, they are 
equally slaves, 

- Even in matters of private property, we 
see the same bias and inclination to depart 
from the decisions of your predecessors,^ 
which you certainly ought to receive as 
evidence of the common law. Instead of 
those certain, positive rules, by which the 
judgment of a court of law should invari- 
ably be determined, you have fondly intro- 
duced your own unsettled notions of equity 
and substantial justice. Decisions given 
upon such principles do not alarm the 
pubhc so m.uch as they ought, because the 
consequence and tendency of each particu- 
lar instance is not observed or regarded. 
In the mean time the practice gains ground ; 
the Court of King's Bench becomes a court 
of equity, and the judge, instead of con- 
sulting strictly the law of the land, refers 
only to the wisdom of the court, and to the 
purity of his own conscience. The name of 
Mr justice Yates will naturally revive in 
your mind some of those emotions of fear 
and detestation, with which you always 
beheld him.^ That great lawyer, that 



respecting literary property : with respect to the 
latter point the House of Lords determined ac- 
cording to his opinion ; and he is universally 
thought by the profession to have been right 
with respect to the former. Lord Mansfield did 
not treat his opinions on these subjects with the 
respect to which they were entitled, nor with the 
decorum that judicial etiquette usually dictates. 
Mr Justice Yates, under these unpleasant cir- 
cumstances, chose, though senior puisne judge 
of the King's Bench, to take the junior judgeship 
of the Common Pleas, then vacant, on the pro- 
motion of the other judges, in consequence of the 
resignation of sir Edward Clive. Tliis removal 
took place May 4, 1770, and sir Joseph Yates 
died on the succeeding 7th of June. 

The following anecdote, if true, is worthy of 
record, and does him immortal honour. In a 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



247 



honest man, saw your whole conduct in the 
light that I do. After years of ineffectual 
resistance to the pernicious principles intro- 
duced by your Lordship, and uniformly 
supported by your hujnhle friends upon the 
bench, he determined to quit a court, 
whose proceedings and decisions he could 
neither assent to with honour, nor oppose 
with success. 

The injustice done to an individual is 
sometimes of service to the pubhc.i Facts 
are apt to alarm us more than the most 
dangerous principles. The sufferings and 
firmness of a printer have roused the public 
attention.! You knew and felt that your 
conduct would not bear a parliamentary 
inquiry, and you hoped to escape it by the 
meanest, the basest sacrifice of dignity and 



debate which took place in the House of Com- 
mons, Dec. 6, 1770, on Mr serjeant Glynn's 
motion, as noticed in p. 118, Mr alderman Towns- 
hend, after other arguments urged in support of 
it, said, ' I am afraid then that there is too great 
a vicinity between Westminster-hall and St 
James's. I suspect, and the people suspect, that 
their correspondence is too close and intimate. 
But why do I say it is suspected ? it is a known, 
avowed fact. A late judge, equally remarkable 
for his knowledge and integrity, was tampered 
with by administration. He was solicited to 
favour the crown in certain trials, which were 
then depending between it and the subject. I 
hear some desiring me to name the judge, but 
there is no necessity for it. The fact is known 
to several members of this House, and if I do 
not speak truth, let those who can, contradict 
me. I call upon them to rise, that the public 
may not be abused— but all are silent, and can 
as little invalidate what I have said as what I am 
going to say. This great, this honest judge, 
being thus solicited in vain, what was now to be 
done ? what was the last resource of baffled in- 
justice ? That was learned from a short con- 
versation which passed between him and some 
friends a little before his death. The last and 
most powerful engine was applied. A letter was 
sent him directly from a Great Personage ; but 
as he suspected it to contain something dishon- 
ourable, he sent it back unopened. Is not this 
a subject that deserves enquiry? Ought we not 
to trace out the adviser of such a daring step, 
and upon proper conviction bring him to the 
block ? The excellent person who was thus 
tempted to disgrace and perjure himself, and to 
betray and ruin his country, could not die in 
peace, till he had disclosed this scene of iniquity, 
and warned his fellow-citizens of their danger.' 
The above extract from Mr alderman Towns- 
hend's speech is taken from a report of the de- 
bate published in the year 1771, by the late 



consistency, that ever was made by a great 
magistrate. Where was your firmness, 
where was that vindictive spirit, of which 
we have seen so many examples, when a 
man, so inconsiderable as Bingley, could 
force you to confess, in the face of this 
country, that, for two years together, you 
liad illegally deprived an English subject of 
his liberty, and that he had triumphed over 
you at last ? Yet I own, my Lord, that 
yours is not an uncommon character. 
Women, and men hke women, are timid, 
vindictive, and irresolute. Their passions 
counteract each other, and make the same 
creature, at one moment hateful, at another 
contemptible. I fancy, my Lord, some 
time will elapse before you venture to com- 
mit another Englishman for refusing to 
answer interrogatories. 2 



celebrated and much respected Mr W. Woodfall, 
who added to the speech itself the following 
N. B. ' Sir Joseph Yates, as will appear in a 
succeeding speech, was the judge meant by the 
alderman. When the letter from a Great Person- 
age was mentioned, lord North and the rest of 
the Treasury-bench stared at one another, but 
did not utter a single sentence by way of contra- 
diction.' — Edit. 

^ The oppression of an obscure individual 
gave birth to the famous Habeas Corpzcs Act of 
31 Car. II., which is frequently considered as 
another Magna Charta of the kingdom. 

Blacksto7ie, 3, 135. 
^ ' Bingley was committed for contempt in not 
submitting to be examined. He lay in prison 
two years, until the Crown thought the matter 
might occasion some serious complaint, and 
therefore he was let out, in the same contu- 
macious state he had been put in, with all his 
sins about him, unanointed and unannealed. — 
There was much coquetry between the court 
and the attorney-general, about who should 
undergo the ridicule of letting him escape.' — 
Vide another Letter to Almon, p. 189. — Au- 
thor. 

To give the reader a better idea of the fact 
alluded to, we shall continue the quotation a few 
lines further than the author, at the period in 
which he wrote, thought necessary. 

' Mr Attorney tried to put it off upon the 
court, by telling them, upon his being brought 
up, he had nothing to pray against him. I'he 
sagacious and noble lord who presided, smelling 
a rat, or knowing there was one. was not to be 
so taken in, and therefore asked, what it was 
Mr Attorney had to ask of the court ; to which 
Mr Attorney said again, he had merely informed 
them, that the defendant Bingley was there, 
and that he should move nothing further about 
him. After a little pause and a recovery from 



248 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



The doctrine you have constantly de- 
livered, in cases of libel, is another power- 
ful evidence of a settled plan to contract 
the legal power of juries, and to draw 
questions, inseparable from fact, within the 
arbitriuvi of the court. Here, my Lord, 
you have fortune of your side. When you 
invade the province of the jury in matter of 
libel, you, in effect, attack the liberty of 
the press, and with a single stroke wound 
two of your greatest enemies.— In some 
instances you have succeeded, because 
jurymen are too often ignorant of their own 
rights, and too apt to be awed by the 
authority of a chief justice. In other crimi- 
nal prosecutions, the malice of the design 

the inertness of this answer, the chief at last let 
him know, that if he moved nothing, nothing 
could be done, and every thing would remain as 
it was, the consequence of which was, that the 
defendant would still be in custody ; the court 
never acted from itself, but upon motion from 
without. Mr Attorney, finding it was in vain to 
be wasting more time about who should do what 
was agreed to be done, in a very manly manner, 
took the thing upon himself, and said, then I 
move that he may be discharged. And thus 
ended, in this pitiful manner, this paltry busi- 
ness.' For a further account of this transaction, 
see note, p. 145. — Edit. 

^ The declaratory act upon this subject brought 
forwards and carried through the legislature by 
the indefatigable exertions of the late Mr Fox, 
and which, were there no other monument to 
immortalize his memory, would alone be suffi- 
cient to transmit it to the latest posterity, has at 
length completely settled this point, and given 
to the jury beyond all controversy on the part of 
the court, the full power of judging of the law as 
well as of the fact ; of the intention as well as of 
the exterior act. 

The full value of this interference of Mr Fox's 
can only be known by comparing it with the 
result of a similar attempt made by Mr Dowdes- 
well in 1771, as extracted from the Public Ad- 
vertiser for March 13. 

' The following is the motion made by Mr 
Dowdeswell in a great assembly and rejected : 
" Whereas doubts and controversies have arisen 
at various times concerning the right of jurors to 
try the whole matter laid in indictments and 
informations for seditious and other libels ; and 
whereas trials by juries would be of none or im- 
perfect effect, if the jurors were not held to be 
competent to try the whole matter aforesaid ; 
For settling and clearing such doubts and con- 
troversies, and for securing to the subject the 
effectual and complete benefit of trial by juries 
in such indictments and informations : Be it 
enacted, &c. That jurors duly impannelled and 
sworn to try the issue between the king and the 



is confessedly as much the subject of con- 
sideration to a jury, as the certainty of the 
fact. If a different doctrine prevails in the 
case of hbels, why should it not extend to 
all criminal cases? — Why not to capital 
offences? I see no reason (and 1 dare say 
you will agree with me that there is no 
good one) why the life of the subject 
should be better protected against you than 
his liberty or property. Why should you 
enjoy the full power of pillory, fine, and 
imprisonment, and not be indulged with 
hanging or transportation? With your 
Lordship's fertile genius and merciful dis- 
position, I can conceive such an exercise of 
the power you have, as could hardly be 
aggravated by that which you have not. 1 

defendant upon any indictment or information 
for a seditious libel, or a libel under any other 
denomination or description, shall be held and 
reputed competent to all intents and purposes, in 
law and in right, to try every part of the matter 
laid or charged in said indictment or information, 
comprehending the criminal intention of the de- 
fendant and the civil tendency of the libel 
charged, as well as the mere fact of the public- 
ation thereof, and the application by innuendo of 
blanks, initial letters, pictures, and other devices ; 
any opinion, question, ambiguity, or doubt to the 
contrary notwithstanding." 

* Mr Dowdeswell observed that as doubts had 
arose in the people's minds respecting the power 
of juries in the cases of libels ; to remove those 
doubts, he should propose an Enactiug Bill, to 
give to juries a power to try the whole matter in 
issue ; that is, to determine whether the paper or 
book charged with being a libel be so or not : 
but that if gentlemen liked a Declaratory Bill 
better, he had left the matter open. He paid 
some compliments to lord Mansfield, and read 
his Enacti7tg Bill. Mr Burke spoke in support 
of the Enacting Bill. [His speech is given at 
length in Vol. X. p. 109 of the 8vo edition of his 
works. In a letter which follows the speech, and 
intended for the Public Advertiser, he denies, as 
stated in that paper, having praised lord Mans- 
field.] 

' Mr James Grenville, jun. spoke for a declara- 
tory bill ; as did Mr Calcraft, Mr Aubrey, and 
Colonel Barre. Sir George Savile, Mr T. 
Townshend, Mr R. H. Coxe, and Mr Dunning 
spoke in favour of the motion. 

'These last gentlemen severally urged the 
necessity of settling this matter beyond doubt or 
controversy ; because it did appear, from a late 
paper given by lord Mansfield to the House of 
Lords, that it was the opinion of all the judges 
of the King's Bench, that the jury should de- 
termine only the fact, and the law should be 
left to the judges ; but this was not only the 
opinion of the judges, but that, in a former 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



249 



But, my Lord, since you have laboured 
(and not unsuccessfully) to destroy the sub- 
stance of the trial, why should you suffer 
the form of the verdict to remain? Why 
force twelve honest meii, in palpable viola- 
tion of their oaths, to pronounce their 
fellow-subject a guilty man, when, almost 
at the same moment, you forbid their en- 
quiring into the only circumstance w'hich, 
in the eye of law and reason, constitutes 
guilt — the malignity or innocence of his in- 
tentions ? — But I understand your Lord- 
ship. — If you could succeed in making the 
trial by jury useless and ridiculous, you 
might then with greater safety introduce a 
bill into parliament for enlarging the juris- 
diction of the court, and extending your 

debate, all the ministerial law^'^ers and leaders 
had supported the same ; that the doctrine was 
dangerous in the highest degree, as encroaching 
on the palladium of English liberty, the trial by 
jury, as leaving the essence of the cause to the 
determination of interested men, the jiidges ; 
that this doctrine, now adopted by the judges, 
was not of older date than the reign of Queen 
Anne. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there was a 
remarkable case, which showed the contrary to 
be the opinion then an indictment of a grand 
jury at Lincoln, which found a true Bittas to the 
jtact, but no true Bill as to the 7nalice, S:c. This 
the judges, at that time, determined to be no 
true Bill ; by which they determined, that the 
jury were judges of the law, as well as the fact; ; 
that in the famous case of the bishops, in the 
reign of James the Second, the judges, though 
made for the purpose, unanimously concurred in 
directing the jury to judge of the luhole of the 
information, as well the laiv as the fact ; that 
whenever the jury had thought proper to dispute 
the affair with the judges, the jury had always 
got the better ; and that a law establishing this 
doctrine would put an end to this dispute. 

' The ministry did not say one single word in 
the dispute, but the debate was taken up by the 
gentlemen of the minority. Capt. Phipps spoke 
very well, and with great spirit. Sir William 
Meredith spoke extremely well ; Mr James Gren- 
ville, j un., spoke inimitably well for his first essay; 
Mr Popham, and others. There was not one of 
them who did not establish the doctrine that 
juries are judges of ta7v as well a.s fact, but dis- 
approved of the present motion for various 
reasons. 

' That the doctrine, being established on the 
foundation of the common law, did not require 
the assistance of the statute law to defend it. 
That if a bill of this nature was brought into the 
House, and afterwards rejected, it might have 
very bad effects on the minds of the people, as it 
might be supposed that the doctrine was doubt- 
ful. That an enactirig law would make it ap- 



favourite trial by interrogatories to eveiy 
question, in which the life or liberty of an 
Englishman is concerned. 1 

Your charge to the jury, in the prosecu- 
tion against Almon and Woodfall, contra- 
dicts the highest legal authorities, as well 
as the plainest dictates of reason. 2 In 
Miller's cause, and still more expressly in 
that of Baldwin, 3 you have proceeded a 
step further, and grossly contradicted your- 
self. — You may know perhaps, though I do 
not mean to insult you by an appeal to 
your experience, that the language of truth 
is uniform and consistent. To depart from 
it safely, requires memory and discretion. 
In the two last trials, your charge to the 
jury began, as usual, with assuring them 



pear, that this was a novel doctrine, which few 
in the House could concur in ; and that if made 
declaratory only, the judges who had acted on 
principles contrary to such declaration, would be 
liable to condign punishment, which the friends 
of the motion did not seem to wish. 

' For these reasons the numbers were, 218 for 
adjourning, 72 against it.' 

Mr Fox himself was not fortunate in his first 
attempt : but he determined to persevere till he 
had succeeded. He lost his bill in the Upper 
House in 1791, but accomplished his purpose in 
the spring of the ensuing year, notwithstanding 
the joint opposition of the law lords, Thurlow, 
Kenyon, and Bathurst. The venerable Camden 
supported the bill with an animation and energy 
well worthy of his own honest heart, and of the 
importance of the principle it endeavoured to 
establish, and maybe said to have finished the 
glorious career of his political life, with the vote 
he gave on this illustrious occasion ; seldom pos- 
sessing sufficient health to ' attend parliament 
afterwards, and expiring on April 18, 1794. — 
Edit. 

^ 'The philosophical poet doth notably de- 
scribe the damnable and damned proceedings of 
the Judge of Hell : 
'Gnossius hie Rhadamanthus habct durisslma 

regna, 
' Castigatque, auditque dolos, sitbigitg^iefateri. 
First he punisheth, and then he heareth ; and 
lastly compelleth to confess, and makes and 
mars laws at his pleasure; like as the Centurion, 
in the holy history, did to St Paul, for the text 
saithj Centurio afprehendi Panluinjicssit, et se 
catenis ligari, et time interrogabat, quis 
fuisset, et quid fecisset ; but good judges and 
justices abhor these courses.' Coke 2. Inst. 55. 

- See this subject further enlarged upon in the 
Preface, p. 117. — Edit. 

3 All the persons here named were prosecuted 
for publishing the Letter to the King, No. 
XXXV. -Edit. 



250 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



that they had nothing to do with the law, — 
that they were to find the bare fact, and 
not concern themselves about the legal 
inferences drawn from it, or the degree of 
the defendant's guilt. — Thus far you were 
consistent with your former practice. — But 
how will you account for the conclusion ? 
You told the jury that, ' if, after all, they 
would take upon themselves to determine 
the law, they anight do it, but they must be 
very sure that they determined according to 
law, for it touched their consciences, and 
they acted at their peril.' — If I understand 
your first proposition, you meant to affirm, 
that the jury were not competent judges of 
the law in the criminal case of a libel — 
that it did not fall within //^^zV jurisdiction ; 
and that, with respect to them, the malice 
or innocence of the defendant's intentions 
would be a question coram non judice. — 
But the second proposition clears away 
your own difficulties, and restores the jury 
to all their judicial capacities. You make 
the competence of the court to depend 
upon the legality of the decision. i In the 
first instance, you deny the power abso- 
lutely. In the second, you admit the 
power, provided it be legally exercised. 
Now, my Lord, without pretending to 
reconcile the distinctions of Westminster- 
hall with the simple information of common 
sense, or the integrity of fair argument, I 
shall be understood by your Lordship, 
when I assert that, if a jury or any other court 
of judicature (for jurors are judges) have no 
right to entertain a cause, or question at 
law, it signifies nothing whether their de- 
cision be or be not according to law. 
Their decision is in itself a mere nulhty; 
the parties are not bound to submit to it ; 
and, if the jury run any risque of punish- 
ment, it is not for pronouncing a corrupt or 



^ Directly the reverse of the doctrine he con- 
stantly maintained in the House of Lords and 
elsewhere, upon the decision of the Middlesex 
election. He invariably asserted that the deci- 
sion must be legal, because the court was co7n- 
petetit ; and never could be prevailed on to enter 
further into the question. 

^ These iniquitous prosecutions cost the best 
of princes six thousand pounds, and ended in the 



illegal verdict, but for the illegality of 
meddling with a point, on which they have 
no legal authority to decide. 2 

I cannot quit this subject without re- 
minding your Lordship of the name of Mr 
Benson. Without offering any legal objec- 
tion, you ordered a special juryman to be 
set aside in a cause, where the king was 
prosecutor. The novelty of the fact re- 
quired explanation. Will you condescend 
to tell the world by what law or custom you 
were authorized to make a peremptory 
challenge of a juryman? The parties in- 
deed have this power, and perhaps your 
Lordship, having accustomed yourself to 
unite the characters of judge and party, 
may claim it in virtue of the new capacity 
you have assumed, and profit by your own 
wrong. The time, within which you might 
have been punished for this daring attempt 
to pack a jury, is, I fear, elapsed ; but no 
length of time shall erase the record of it.^ 
The mischiefs you have done this country, 
are not confined to your interpretation of 
the laws. You are a minister, my Lord, 
and, as such, have long been consulted. 
Let us candidly examine what use you 
have made of your ministerial influence. I 
will not descend to little matters, but come 
at once to those important points, on which 
your resolution was waited for, on which 
the expectation of your opinion kept a 
great part of the nation in suspense. — A 
constitutional question arises upon a de- 
claration of the law of parliament, by which 
the freedom of election and the birthright of 
the subject were supposed to have been in- 
vaded. — The king's servants are accused of 
violating the constitution. — The nation is in 
a ferment. — The ablest men of all parties 
engage in the question, and exert their ut- 
most abilities in the discussion of it. — What 



total defeat and disgrace of the prosecutors. In 
the course of one of them, Judge Aston had the 
unparalleled impudence to tell Mr Morris (a 
gentleman of unquestionable honour and integ- 
rity, and who was then giving his evidence on 
oath) that he should pay very little regard to any 
affidavit he should make. 

3 See this circumstance further explained in 
Letters LXI. and LXIII.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



251 



part has the honest lord Mansfield acted ? 
As an eminent judge of the law, his opinion 
would have been respected. — As a peer, he 
had a right to demand an audience of his 
sovereign, and inform him that his ministers 
were pursuing unconstitutional measures. 
— Upon other occasions, my Lord, you 
have no difficulty in finding your way into 
the closet. The pretended neutrality of 
belonging to no party, will not save your 
reputation. In questions merely political, 
an honest man may stand neuter. But the 
laws and constitution are the general pro- 
perty of the subject ;— not to defend is to 
relinquish ; — and who is there so senseless 
as to renounce his share in a common bene- 
fit, unless he hopes to profit by a new 
division of the spoil. As a lord of parlia- 
ment, you were repeatedly called upon to 
condemn or defend the new law declared 
by the House of Commons. You affected 
to have scruples, and every expedient was 
attempted to remove them. — The question 
was proposed and urged to you in a thou- 
sand different shapes. — Your prudence still 
supplied you with evasion ; — your resolu- 
tion was invincible. For my own part, I 
am not anxious to penetrate this solemn 
secret. I care not to whose wisdom it is 
intrusted, nor how soon you carry it with 
you to your grave. ^ You have betrayed 
your opinion by the very care you have 
taken to conceal it. It is not from lord 
Mansfield that we expect any reserve in 
declaring his real sentiments in favour of 
government, or in opposition to the people ; 
nor is it difficult to account for the motions 
of a timid, dishonest heart, which neither 
has virtue enough to acknowledge truth, 
nor courage to contradict it. — Yet you con- 
tinue to support an administration which 



^ He said in the House of Lords, that he be- 
lieved he should carry his opinion with him to 
the grave. It was afterwards reported that he 
had intrusted it, in special confidence, to the 
ingenious duke of Cumberland. 

^ Upon the death of Charles Yorke, who, as 
has been already observed, cut his throat almost 
immediately on his appointment to the chancel- 
lorship, the great seal was held in commission 
by sir Sydney Stafford Smythe, the hon. Henry 
Bathurst, and sir Richard Aston ; while lord 



you know is universally odious, and which, 
on some occasions, you yourself speak of 
with contempt. You would fain be thought 
to take no share in government, while, in 
reality, you are the main-spring of the 
machine. — Here too we trace the little, 
prudential poHcy of a Scotchman. — Instead 
of acting that open, generous part, which 
becomes your rank and station, you meanly 
skulk into the closet, and give your sove- 
reign such advice, as you have not spirit to 
avow or defend. You Secretly engross the 
power, while you decline the title of minis- 
ter ; and though you dare not be chancel- 
lor, you know how to secure the emolu- 
ments of the office. — Are the seals to be for 
ever in commission, that you may enjoy 
five thousand pounds a year ? — I beg par- 
don, my Lord ; ^ — your fears have inter- 
posed at last, and forced you to resign. — 
The odium of continuing speaker of the 
House of Lords, upon such terms, was too 
formidable to be resisted. What a multi- 
tude of bad passions are forced to submit 
to a constitutional infirmity ! But though 
you have relinquished the salary, you still 
assume the rights of a minister. — Your 
conduct, it seems, must be defended in par- 
liament. — For what other purpose is your 
wretched friend, that miserable serjeant, 
posted to the House of Commons? Is it in 
the abilities of Mr Leigh to defend the 
great lord Mansfield ? — Or is he only the 
punch of the puppet-show, to speak as he 
is prompted by the chief juggler behind 
the curtain ? ^ 

In public affairs, my Lord, cunning, let it 
be ever so well wrought, will not conduct a 
man honourably through life.^ Like bad 
money, it may be current for a time, but it 
will soon be cried down. It cannot consist 
with a liberal spirit, though it be sometimes 

Mansfield was appointed speaker of the Upper 
House, and received the fees attached to that 
important situation. Lord Apsley, about the 
date of this letter, succeeded to both offices. — • 
Edit. 

3 This paragraph gagged poor Leigh. I really 
am concerned for the man, and wish it were pos- 
sible to open his mouth. — He is a very pretty 
orator. 

4 See Private Letter, No. 44.— Edit. 



252 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



united with extraordinary qualifications. 
When I acknowledge your abilities, you 
may believe I am sincere. I feel for human 
nature, when I see a man, so gifted as you 
are, descend to such vile practice. — Yet do 
not suffer your vanity to console you too 
soon. Believe me, my good Lord, you are 
not admired in the same degree in which 
you are detested. It is only the partiality 
of your friends, that balances the defects of 
your heart with the superiority of your 
understanding. No learned man, even 
among your own tribe, thinks you quahfied 
to preside in a court of common law. Yet 
it is confessed that, under Justinian, you 
might have made an incomparable Prcetor. 
— It is remarkable enough, but I hope not 
ominous, that the laws you understand 
best, and the judges you affect to admire 
most, flourished in the decline of a great 
empire, and are supposed to have contri- 
buted to its fall. 

Here, my Lord, it may be proper for us 
to pause together. — It is not for my ov/n 
sake that I wish you to consider the de- 
licacy of your situation. Beware how you 
indulge the first emotions of your resent- 
ment. This paper is delivered to the world, 
and cannot be recalled ! The persecution 
of an innocent printer cannot alter facts, 
nor refute arguments. — Do not furnish me 
with farther materials against yourself.— An 
honest man, like the true religion, appeals 
to the understanding, or modestly confides 
in the internal evidence of his conscience. 
The impostor employs force instead of 
argument, imposes silence where he cannot 
convince, and propagates his character by 
the sword. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLII.i 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, January 30, 1771. 

If we recollect in what manner 



^ ' This paper is extremely well printed, and 
has a great effect.' Private Letter, No. 29. Date, 
Jan. 31, 1771. — Edit. 



the Kings friends have been constantly 
employed, we shall have no reason to be 
surprised at any condition of disgrace, to 
which the once respected name of English- 
men may be degraded. His Majesty has 
no cares, but such as concern the laws and 
constitution of this country. In his royal 
breast there is no room left for resentment, 
no place for hostile sentiments against the 
natural enemies of his crown. The system 
of government is uniform. — Violence and 
oppression at home can only be supported 
by treachery and submission abroad. When 
the civil rights of the people are daringly 
invaded on one side, what have we to e-\- 
pect, but that their pohtical rights should 
be deserted and betrayed, in the same pro- 
portion, on the other? The plan of do- 
mestic policy, which has been invariably 
pursued, from the moment of his present 
Majesty's accession, engrosses all the at- 
tention of his servants. They know that 
the security of their places depends upon 
their maintaining, at any hazard, the secret 
system of the closet. A foreign war might 
embarrass, an unfavourable event might 
ruin the minister, and defeat the deep-laid 
scheme of policy, to which he and his as- 
sociates owe their employments. Rather 
than suffer the execution of that scheme to 
be delayed or interrupted, the king has 
been advised to make a pubhc surrender, a 
solemn sacrifice, in the face of all Europe, 
not only of the interests of his subjects, but 
of his own personal reputation, and of the 
dignity of that crown, which his predeces- 
sors have worn with honour. These are 
strong terms. Sir, but they are supported 
by fact and argument. 

The king of Great Britain had been for 
some years in possession of an island, 2 to 
which, as the ministry themselves have re- 
peatedly asserted, the Spaniards had no 
claim of right. The importance of the 
place is not in question. If it were, a 
better judgment might be formed of it 



^ Falkland, or the Great Malouine Island. 
See a brief statement of the whole dispute in a 
note to Miscellaneous Letter, No, LXXXVIII. 
—Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



253 



from the opinions of lord Anson and lord 
Egmont, and from the anxiety of the Span- 
iards, than from any fallacious insinuations 
thrown out by men, whose interest it is to 
undervalue that property, which they are 
determined to relinquish. The pretensions 
of Spain were a subject of negotiation be- 
tween the two courts. They had been dis- 
cussed, but not admitted. The king of 
Spain, in these circumstances, bids adieu 
to amicable negotiation, and appeals di- 
rectly to the sword. The expedition against 
Port Egmont does not appear to have been 
a sudden ill-concerted enterprise. It seems 
to have been conducted not only with the 
usual military precautions, but in all the 
forms and ceremonies of war. A frigate 
was first employed to examine the strength 
of the place. A message was then sent, 
demanding immediate possession, in the 
Catholic king's name, and ordering our 
people to depart. At last a miUtary force 
appears, and compels the garrison to sur- 
render. A formal capitulation ensues, and 
his Majesty's ship, which might at least 
have been permitted to bring home his 
troops immediately, is detained in port 
twenty days, and her rudder forcibly taken 
away. This train of facts carries no ap- 
pearance of the rashness or violence of a 
Spanish governor. On the contrary, the 
whole plan seems to have been formed and 
executed, in consequence of deliberate 
orders, and a regular instruction from the 
Spanish court. Mr Bucarelli is not a pirate, 
nor has he been treated as such by those 
who employed him } I feel for the honour 
of a gentleman, when I afhrm that our 
king owes him a signal reparation.— Where 
will the humiliation of this country end ! 
A king of Great Britain, not contented with 
placing himself upon a level with a Spanish 
governor, descends so low as to do a no- 
torious injustice to that governor. As a 
salvo for his own reputation, he has been 



^ The governor of Buenos Aj-res, under whose 
directions the expedition, sent to take possession 
of Port Egmont, was forwarded ; and who, it 
was well known, did not act without authority. 
— Edit. 



advised to traduce the character of a brave 
officer, and to treat him as a common rob- 
ber, when he knew with certainty that Mr 
Bucarelli had acted in obedience to his 
orders, and had done no more than his 
duty. Thus it happens in private life, with 
a man who has no spirit nor sense of hon- 
our.— One of his equals orders a servant to 
strike him. — Instead of returning the blow 
to the master, his courage is contented with 
throwing an aspersion, equally false and 
public, upon the character of the servant. 

This short recapitulation was necessary 
to introduce the consideration of his Ma- 
jesty's speech, of 13th November, 1770, 
and the subsequent measures of govern- 
ment. The excessive caution with which 
the speech was drawn up, had impressed 
upon me an early conviction, that no serious 
resentment was thought of, and that the 
conclusion of the business, whenever it 
happened, must, in some degree, be dis- 
honourable to England. There appears 
through the whole speech, a guard and 
reserve in the choice of expression, which 
shows how careful the ministry were not to 
embarrass their future projects by any firm 
or spirited declaration from the throne. 
When all hopes of peace are lost, his 
Majesty tells his parliament, that he is pre- 
paring, — not for barbarous war, but (with 
all his mother's softness ~) for a different 
situation. — An open act of hostility, author- 
ized by the Catholic king, is called an act 
of a governor. This act, to avoid the men- 
tion of a regular siege and surrender, passes 
under the piratical description of seizing by 
force ; and the thing taken is described, 
not as a part of the king's territory or pro- 
per dominion, but merely as a possession, a 
word expressly chosen in contradistinction 
to, and exclusion of, the idea of right, and 
to prepare us for a future surrender both of 
the right and of the possession. Yet this 
speech. Sir, cautious and equivocal as it is, 
cannot, by any sophistry, be accommodated 
to the measures which have since been 



^ Alluding to the vulgar report of the day, 
that the Princess Dowager of Wales had inter- 
fered in the Spanish negotiation. — Edit. 



254 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



adopted. It seemed to promise, that what- 
ever might be given up by secret stipula- 
tion, some care would be taken to save 
appearances to the public. The event 
sliows us, that to depart, in the minutest 
article, from the nicety and strictness of 
punctiho, is as dangerous to national hon- 
our as to female virtue. The woman who 
admits of one familiarity, seldom knows 
where to stop, or what to refuse ; and when 
the counsels of a great country give way in 
a single instance, — when once they are in- 
clined to submission, — every step accelerates 
the rapidity of the descent. The ministry 
themselves, when they framed the speech, 
did not foresee that they should ever ac- 
cede to such an accommodation as they 
have since advised their master to accept of. 
The king says. The honour of my crown 
and the rights of my people are deeply affect- 
ed. The Spaniard, in his reply, says, / 
give you back possession, but I adhere to my 
claim of prior right, reserving the assertion 
of it for a more favourable opportunity. 

The speech says, / viade an immediate 
demaiid of satisfaction, and, if that fails, I 
am prepared to do myself justice. This 
immediate demand must have been sent to 
Madrid on the 12th of September, or in a 
few days after. It was certainly refused, 
or evaded, and the king has not done him- 
self justice. — When the first magistrate 
speaks to the nation, some care should be 
taken of his apparent veracity. 

The speech proceeds to say, / shall not 
discontinue my preparations until I have 
received proper reparation for the iyijury. 
If this assurance may be relied on, what an 
enormous expense is entailed, sine die, upon 
this unhappy country ! Restitution of a 
possession and reparation of an injury are 
as different in substance as they are in lan- 
guage. The very act of restitution may 
contain, as in this instance it palpably does, 
a shameful aggravation of the injury. A 
man of spirit does not measure the degree 
of an injury by the mere positive damage 
he has sustained. He considers the prin- 
ciple on which it is founded ; he resents 
the superiority asserted over him ; and re- 



jects with indignation the claim of right, 
which his adversary endeavours to establish, 
and would force him to acknowledge. 

The motives, on which the Catholic king 
makes restitution, are, if possible, more 
insolent and disgraceful to our sovereign, 
than even the declaratory condition annex- 
ed to it. After taking four months to con- 
sider whether the expedition was under- 
taken by his own orders or not, he 
condescends to disavow the enterprise, and 
to restore the island ; — not from any regard 
to justice, — not from any regard he bears 
to his Britannic Majesty, but merely //-cw 
the persuasion, in which he is, of the pacific 
sentiments of the king of Great Britain — 
At this rate, if our king had discovered the 
spirit of a man, — if he had made a per- 
emptory demand of satisfaction, the king 
of Spain would have given him a peremp- 
tory refusal. But why this unseasonable, 
this ridiculous mention of the king of Great 
Britain's pacific intentions ? Have they ever 
been in question? Was he the aggressor? 
Does he attack foreign powers without pro- 
vocation ? Does he even resist, when he is 
insulted ? No, Sir, if any ideas of strife or 
hostility have entered his royal mind, they 
have a very different direction. The ene- 
mies of England have nothing to fear from 
them. 

After all. Sir, to what kind of disavowal 
has the king of Spain at last consented ? 
Supposing it made in proper time, it should 
have been accompanied with instant restitua- 
tion ; and if Mr Bucarelli acted without 
orders, he deserved death. Now, Sir, 
instead of immediate restitution, we have a 
four months' negotiation, and the officer, 
whose act is disavowed, returns to court, 
and is loaded with honours. 

If the actual situation of Europe be con- 
sidered, the treachery of the king's servants, 
particularly of lord North, who takes the 
whole upon himself, will appear in' the 
strongest colours of aggravation. Our allies 
were masters of the Mediterranean. The 
king of France's present aversion from war 
and the distraction of his affairs are no- 
torious. He is now in a state of war with 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



255 



his people. In vain did the Catholic king 
solicit him to take part in the quarrel 
against us. His finances were in the last 
disorder, and it was probable that his 
troops might find sufficient employment at 
home. In these circumstances, we might 
have dictated the law to Spain. There are 
no terms to which she might not have been 
compelled to submit. At the worst, a war 
with Spain alone carries the fairest promise 
of advantage. One good effect at least 
would have been immediately produced by 
it. The desertion of France would have 
irritated her ally, and in all probability 
have dissolved the family compact. The 
scene is now fatally changed. The advan- 
tage is thrown away. The most favourable 
opportunity is lost. — Hereafter we shall 
know the value of it. When the French 
king is reconciled to his subjects ; — when 
Spain has completed her preparations ; — 
when the collected strength of the house of 
Bourbon attacks us at once, the king him- 
self will be able to determine upon the wis- 
dom or imprudence of his present conduct. i 
As far as the probability of argument 
extends, we may safely pronounce, that a 
conjunciure, which threatens the very being 
of this country, has been wilfully prepared 
and forwarded by our own ministry. How 
far the people may be animated to resist- 
ance under the present administration, I 
know not ; but this I know with certainty, 
that, under the present administration, or if 
any thing Hke it should continue, it is of 
very little moment whether we are a con- 
quered nation or not.^ 

Having travelled thus far in the high 
road of matter of fact, I may now be per- 
mitted to wander a little into the field of 



^ This prediction was but too fatally verified, 
In the aid subsequently afforded by those powers 
to America. — Edit. 

^ The king's acceptance of the Spanish am- 
bassadors declaration Is drawn up in barbarous 
French, and signed by the earl of Rochford. 
This diplomatic lord has spent his life in the 
study and practice of etiqitettes, and Is supposed 
to be a profound master of the ceremonies. I will 
not Insult him by any reference to grammar or 
common sense. If he were even acquainted with 
the common forms of his office, I should think 



imagination. Let us banish from our minds 
i the persuasion that these events have really 
j happened in the reign of the best of 
i princes. Let us consider them as nothmg 
more than the materials of a fable, in which 
we may conceive the sovereign of some 
other country to be concerned. I mean to 
: violate all the laws of probabiUty, when I 
I suppose that this imaginary king, after 
i having voluntarily disgraced himself in the 
j eyes of his subjects, might return to a sense 
1 of his dishonour ! — that he might perceive 
the snare laid for him by his ministers, and 
: feel a spark of shame kindling in his 
breast. — The part he must then be obliged 
I to act, would overwhelm him with confu- 
; sion. To his pariiament he must say, / 
called you together to receive your advice, 
and have never asked your opinion. — To 
the merchant, — I have distressed your com- 
merce ; I have dragged your seame7i out of 
your ships, I have loaded you with a griev- 
ous weight of insurances. — To the land- 
i holder, — / told you war was too probable, 
when I was deterfnined to st{b7nit to any 
ter?ns of accommodatio7i ; I extorted new 
taxes from you before it was possible they 
could be wanted, and am 7iow tmable to 
accou7it for the application of the77i. — To 
the public creditor, — / have delivered up 
your fortimes a prey to foreigners, a7id to 
the vilest of your fellow-subjects. Perhaps 
this repenting prince might conclude with 
one general acknowledgment to them all, 
— / have involved every ra/ik of i7iy sub- 
.jects in a/ixiety a/id distress, a7id have 
7iothing to offer you in return, but the 
certai7ity of 77atio7ial disho77our, a7i- armed 
truce, a7id peace withozit security. 

If these accounts were settled, there 



him as well qualified for it as any man In his 
Majesty's service. — The reader Is requested to 
observe lord Rochford's method of authenticating 
a public instrument. ' En fol de quoi, nzoi 
soussigne, un des princlpaux secretaires d'etat 
de S.jNI.B. rtz signe la presente de ma signature 
ordinaire, et k Icelle fait apposer le cachet de 7ios 
armes.' In three lines there are no less than 
seven false concords. But the man does not 
even know the style of his office ; — If he had 
known It, he would have said, ' fi.07(s, soussign^, 
secretaire d'etat de S. M. B. avotts slgn6,' S'c. 



256 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



would still remain an apology to be made 
to his navy and to his army. To the first 
he would say, You were once the terror of 
the world. Btit go back to your harboiirs. 
A mafi dishonoured, as I am, has no tise 
for your service. It is not probable that he 
would appear again before his soldiers, 
even in the pacific ceremony of a review.^ 
But wherever he appeared, the humiliating 
confession would be extorted from him : / 
have received a blow, — and had 7iot spirit 
to resent it. I de7na7ided satisfaction, and 
have accepted a declaration, in which the 
right to strike me again is asserted a7td 
confirmed. His countenance at least would 
speak this language, and even his guards 
would blush for him. 

But to return to our argument. — The 
ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a 
line of distinction between the honour of the 

^ A mistake. He appears before them every 
day, with the mark of a blow upon his face. — 
Prohpudor I 

^ It was against this letter that Dr Johnson 
was engaged by the ministry to muster the whole 
of his political and argumentative powers. His 
answer, published in 1771, is entitled, 'Thoughts 
on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's 
Islands ; ' from which the following is worth 
transcribing : 

' To considerations such as these, it is reason- 
able to impute that anxietj'- of the Spaniards, 
from which the importance of this island is in- 
ferred by Junius, one of the it'H writers of his 
despicable faction whose name does not disgrace 
the page of an opponent. The value of the 
thing disputed may be very different to him that 
gains and him that loses it. The Spaniards, by 
yielding Falkland's Island, have admitted a 
precedent of what they think encroachment, 
have suffered a breach to be made in the out- 
works of their empire, and, notwithstanding the 
reserve of prior right, have suffered a dangerous 
exception to the prescriptive tenure of their 
American territories. 

' An unsuccessful war would undoubtedly have 
had the effect which the enemies of the ministry 
so earnestly desire ; for who could have sustained 
the disgrace of folly ending in misfortune ? but 
had wanton invasion undeservedly prospered, 
had Falkland's Island been yielded uncondi- 
tionally with every right prior and posterior, 
though the rabble might have shouted, and the 
windows have blazed, yet those who know the 
value of life, and the uncertainty of public credit, 
would have murmured, perhaps unheard, at the 
increase of our debt, and the loss of our people. 

' This thirst of blood, however the visible pro- 
moters of sedition may think it convenient to 



crown and the rights of the people. This new 
idea has yet been only started in discourse, 
for in effect both objects have been equally 
sacrificed. I neither understand the distinc- 
tion, nor what use the ministry propose to 
make of it. The king's honour is that of his 
people. Their real honour and real inter- 
est are the same. — I am not contending for 
a vain punctilio. A clear, unblemished 
character comprehends not only the in- 
tegrity that will not offer, but the spirit 
that will not submit to, an injury ; and 
whether it belongs to an individual or to a 
community, it is the foundation of peace, 
of independence, and of safety. Private 
credit is wealth ; — public honour is se- 
curity. — The feather that adorns the royal 
bird, supports its flight. Strip him of his 
plumage, and you fix him to the earth. 2 
JUNIUS. 

shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by 
Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much 
of its pride, and some of its popularity : Of Junius 
it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he scatters 
ambiguous expressions among the vulgar ; for he 
cries havock without reserve, and endeavours to 
let slip the dogs of foreign and of civil war, ig- 
norant whither they are going, and careless what 
may be their prey. Junius has sometimes made 
his satire felt, but let not injudicious admiration 
mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of 
the bow. He has sometimes sported with lucky- 
malice ; but to him that knows his company, it 
is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask. While he 
walks like Jack the Giant Killer in a coat of 
darkness, he may do much mischief with little 
strength. Novelty captivates the superficial 
and thoughtless ; vehemence delights the discon- 
tented and turbulent. He that contradicts 
acknowledged truth will always have an audi- 
ence ; he that vilifies established authority will 
always find abettors. 

' Junius burst into notice with a blaze of im- 
pudence which has rarely glared upon the world 
before, and drew the rabble after him as a mon- 
ster makes a show. When he had once pro- 
vided for his safety by impenetrable secrecy, he 
had nothing to combat but truth and justice, 
enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. 
Being then at liberty to indulge himself in all the 
immunities of invisibility ; out of the reach of 
danger, he has been bold ; out of the reach of 
shame, he has been confident. As a rhetorician, 
he has the art of persuading when he seconded 
desire ; as a reasoner, he has convinced those 
who had no doubt before ; as a moralist, he has 
taught that virtue may disgrace ; and as a 
patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on 
the high. Finding sedition ascendant, he has 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



257 



LETTER XLIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6^A Feb. 1771. 

I HOPE your correspondent Junius 
is better employed than in answering or 



been able tt) advance it ; finding the nation com- 
bustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us 
abstract from his wit the vivacity of insolence, 
and withdraw from his efficacy the sympathetic 
favour of plebeian malignity ; I do not say that 
we shall leave him nothing ; the cause that I 
defend scorns the help of falsehood ; but if we 
leave him only his merit, what will be his praise ? 

' It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his 
pungency of periods, or his fertility of allusion, 
that he detains the cits of London and the boors 
of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take 
no cognizance. They admire^him for virtues 
like their own, for contempt of order and violence 
of outrage, for rage of defamation and audacity 
of falsehood. The supporters of the Bill of 
Rights feel no niceties of composition, nor dex- 
terities of sophistry ; their faculties are better 
proportioned to the bawl of Bellas or barbarity 
of Beckford ; but they are told that Junius is on 
their side, and they are therefore sure that 
Junius is infallible. Those who know not 
whither he would lead them, resolve to follow 
him ; and those who cannot find his meaning, 
hope he means rebellion. 

' Junius is an unusual phaenomenon, on which 
some have gazed with wonder, and some with 
terror, but wonder and terror are transitory pas- 
sions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or 
more attentively examined, and what folly has 
taken for a comet that, from its flaming hair, 
shook pestilence and war, enquiry will find to be 
only a meteor formed by the vapours of putrefy- 
ing democracy, and kindled into flame by the 
effervescence of interest struggling with convic- 
tion, which, after having plunged its followers 
in a bog, will leave us enquiring why we re- 
garded it. 

' Yet though I cannot think the style of Jul* lus 
secure from criticism, though his expressions are 
often trite, and his periods feeble, I should never 
have stationed him where he has placed himself, 
had I not rated him by his morals rather than 
his faculties. ' What,' says Pope, ' must be the 
priest, where the monkey is a god ? ' What 
must be the drudge of a party of which the 
heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and 
Townshend ? 

'Junius knows his own meaning, and can 
therefore tell it. He is an enemy to the ministry, 
he sees them hourly growing stronger. He 
knows that a war at once unjust and unsucce.ss- 
ful would have certainly displaced them, and is 
therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry that 
war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully 
conducted ; but there are others whose thoughts 



reading the criticisms of a newspaper. 
This is a task, from which, if he were in- 
chned to submit to it, his friends ought to 
reheve him. Upon this principle, I shall 
undertake to answer Anti Jimuis, more, I 
believe, to his conviction than to his satis- 
faction. Not daring to attack the main 



are less clearly expressed, and whose schemes 
perhaps are less consequentially digested, who 
declare that they do not wish for a rupture, yet 
condemn the ministrj^ for not doing that from 
which a rupture would naturally have followed.' 

Of this pamphlet the ministry were not a little 
proud; and especially as they made no doubt 
that Junius would hereby be drawn into a paper 
contest with Johnson, and that hence they 
would possess a greater facility of detecting him. 
Junius seems to have been aware of the trap 
laid for him, and made no direct reply whatever. 
How far the Doctor was correct m asking the 
question, what must be the drudge of a party of 
which the heads are Wilkes and Crosbys Saw- 
bridge and Townshend ? may be seen by refer- 
ring to the protest entered on the Lords' journals 
against the address voted in consequence of the 
communications made to both Houses of parlia- 
ment on the conclusion of the Spanish conven- 
tion, which adopts most of the sentiments here 
so ably expressed, and which will be fo'ind in a 
note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. LXXXVIII., 
p. 467. 

In eflfect the Doctor did not fairly meet his 
argument ; and a reply was not altogether 
necessary. 

With one part of this celebrated pamphlet the 
minister himself was displeased, and actually 
suppressed the sale till his own correction was 
substituted for the obnoxious passage. The 
reader shall receive the account from the follow- 
ing letter inserted in the Public Advertiser, 
which is sufficiently explicit, and was incapable 
of contradiction. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

Sir, April 1, 1771. 

Some little time ago there was pub- 
lished a pamphlet, intitled, ' Thoughts on the 
late transactions respecting Falkland's Islands,' 
said, upon good grounds, to have been written 
by the learned Dr Johnson, under the special 
direction of the minister-apparent. Scarce were 
a few copies got abroad, before the sale of the 
edition, which had been advertised, was stopped, 
by order of the minister, for the sake of an 
alteration, which was made (as there is reason to 
believe) without the consent of the Doctor hav- 
ing been asked or had ; after which it was set 
a-going again, and the public is now happily 
once more in possession of it. But as some may 
be curious to know in what it was that the 
alteration particularly consisted, and may not 
have by them both the first published and the 
17 



258 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS, 



body of JUNius's last letter, he triumphs 
in having, as he thinks, surprised an out- 
post, and cut off a detached argument, a 
mere straggling proposition. But even in 
this petty warfare, he shall find himself de- 
feated. 

Junius does not speak of the Spanish 
nation as the natural enetnies of England. 
He applies that description, with the strict- 
est truth and justice, to the Spanish Court. 
From the moment when a prince of the 
House of Bourbon ascended that throne, 
their whole system of government was in- 
verted and became hostile to this country. 
Unity of possession introduced a unity of 
politics and Lewis the Fourteenth had 
reason when he said to his grandson, ' The 
Pyrenees are removed' The history of the 
present century is one continued confirma- 
tion of the prophecy. 

The assertion ' That violence and op- 
pressiofi at home can only be supported by 
treachery and sub77tission abroad,' is applied 
to a free people, whose rights are invaded, 
not to the government of a country, where 
despotic or absolute power is confessedly 
vested in the prince ; and with this applica- 
tion, the assertion is true. An absolute 
monarch having no points to carry at home, 



altered pamphlet to compare, the following ac- 
count will solve the question : 

In x!t^^ first publication, pages 67 and 68, you 
have the following paragraph : 

' The Manilla ransom has, I think, been most 
mentioned by the inferior bellowers of sedition. 
Those who lead the faction know that it cannot 
be remembered much to their advantage. The 
followers of lord Rockingham remember that 
his ministry begun and ended without obtaining 
it : the adherents to Grenville would be told that 
he could never be brought to understand our 
claim. The law of nations made little of his know- 
ledge. Let him not, however, be depreciated in 
his grave ; he had powers not universally pos- 
sessed : if -he could have got the money he could 
have COUNTED it.' 

Upon calling in the pamphlet, this sarcastic 
pretty epigram, at the close of the paragraph, 
was struck out, the two pages being cancelled, 
and a carton substituted, with the following 
alteration after the word ' possessed ; ' 
' And if he sometimes erred, he luas likewise 
sometimes right.' 

And thus it now stands in the second publica- 
tion. And here the exquisite stupidity of the 



will naturally maintain the honour of his 
crown in all his transactions with foreign 
powers. But if we could suppose the sove- 
reign of a free nation possessed with a~ 
design to make himself absolute, he would 
be inconsistent with himself if he suffered 
his projects to be interrupted or embarrass- 
ed by a foreign war ; unless that war 
tended, as in some cases it might, to pro- 
mote his principal design. Of the three 
exceptions to this general rule of conduct 
(quoted by Anil Junius), that of OUver 
Cromwell is the only one in point. Harry 
the Eighth, by the submission of his parlia- 
ment, was as absolute a prince as Lewis 
the Fourteenth. Queen Ehzabeth's govern- 
ment was not oppressive to the people ; 
and as to hertforeign wars, it ought to be 
considered that they were imavoidable. 
The national honour was not in question. 
She was compelled to fight in defence of 
her own person and of her title to the 
crown. In the common course of selfish 
policy, Oliver Cromwell should have cul- 
tivated the friendship of foreign powers, or 
at least have avoided disputes with them, 
the better to establish his tyranny at home. 
Had he been only a bad man, he would 
have sacrificed the honour of the nation to 



words which were substituted to the words ex- 
punged, would not be worth remarking, as if it 
was very possible to name that personage in the 
world of whom it was not predicable, that 'if he 
sometimes erred, he was also sometimes rigfit; ' 
but that there occurs upon it a not uncurious 
question, to which of the two motives of the 
minister this notable alteration was most probably 
owing ; a question which it is left to the candour 
of the reader to decide with himself. 

Whether was it owing to the premier's scrupul- 
ous delicacy of not wounding the memory of the 
dead (a man who with a knowledge of the laws, 
and of the finances, infinitely superior to his, had 
however, if possible, as little of the genius for 
managing affairs as himself), that he caused the 
close of the paragraph in the first publication to 
be cancelled, to make way for foisting into the 
second an alteration that mended nothing, being 
manifestly an exquisite chip of nonsense .' 

Or, was it that those unlucky words in the first, 
relative to the counting oi jnoney, struck the con- 
scious premier, in the light of the obvious danger 
of the public's being reminded by them of that 
rich story of a hig-h character's having, upon a 
time, been observed busily employed in the noble 
act of counting money at church? — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



259 



the success of his domestic policy. But, 
with all his crimes, he had the spirit of an 
Englishman. The conduct of such a man 
must always be an exception to vulgar 
rules. He had abilities sufficient to recon- 
cile contradictions, and to make a great 
nation at the same moment unhappy and 
formidable. If it were not for the respect 
I bear the minister, I could name a man, 
who, without one grain of understanding, 
can do half as much as Oliver Cromwell. 

Whether or no there be a secret systcin 
in the closet, and what may be the object 
of it, are questions which can only be de- 
termined by appearances, and on which 
every man must decide for himself. 

The whole plan of JuNius's letter proves 
that he himself makes no distinction be- 
tween the real honour of the crown and the 
real interest of the people. In the climax, 
to which your correspondent objects, Ju- 
nius adopts the language of the court, and 
by that conformity gives strength to his 
argument. He says that ' the king has 
not only sacrificed the interests of his people, 
but (what was likely to touch him more 
nearly) his personal reputation, and the 
dignity of his crown.' 

The queries, put by Anti Jtmius, can 
only be answered by the ministry.! Aban- 
doned as they are, I fancy they will not 
confess that they have, for so many years, 
maintained possession of another man's 
property. After admitting the assertion of 
the ministry — viz. thai the Spaniards had 
no rightful claim, and after justifying them 
for saying so, — it is his business, not mine, 
to give us some good reason for their 
sufferi7ig the pretensions of Spain to be a 

^ A writer, subscribing himself Anti Jiamis, 
attacked the preceding letter of Junius in three 
successive numbers of the Public Advertiser, in 
February 1771 ; but, after the extracts inserted 
from Dr Johnson, his letters are hardly entitled 
to further notice. — Euit. 

^ On the seventh of February appeared the 
following letter ; 

to the printer of the public advertiser. 
Sir, 
The first letter oi Anti Junius did not promise 
a second, or at least it escaped me. I shall re- 



subject of negotiatio7t. He admits the 
facts ; — let him reconcile them if he can. 

The last paragraph brings us back to the 
original question, whether the Spanish de- 
claration contains such a satisfaction as the 
king of Great Britain ought to have accept- 
ed. This was the field upon which he 
ought to have encountered Junius openly 
and fairly. But here he leaves the argu- 
ment, as no longer defensible. I shall 
therefore conclude with one general ad- 
monition to ray fellow-subjects ; — ■ that, 
when they hear these matters debated, they 
should not suffer themselves to be misled 
by general declamations upon the conveni- 
ences of peace, or the miseries of war. 
Between peace and war, abstractedly, there 
is not, there cannot be, a question in the 
mind of a rational being. The real ques- 
tions are. Have we a?iy security that the 
peace we have so dearly purchased will last 
a tivelvemonth f and if not, — have we, or 
have we not, sacrificed the fairest oppor- 
tunity of making war with advantage f 
PHILO JUNIUS.2 



LETTER XLIV.3 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 22 April, 1771. 

To write for profit without taxing 
the press ;* — to write for fame and to be un- 
known ; to support the intrigues of faction 
and to be disowned, as a dangerous aux- 
iliary, by every party in the kingdom, are 
contradictions which the minister must 
reconcile, before I forfeit my credit with 



serve my observations on his second till I see the 
whole. 

In the third paragraph of my letter (line 29) it 
should have been printed common course, not 
common cause. 

PHILO JUNIUS.' 

The error is corrected in this edition. — Edit. 

3 On this letter, respecting privil|^e, Junius 
makes the following remark to Mr Wilkes. 
'The pains I took with that paper, were greater 
than I can express to you.' Private Letter, No. 
70. — Edit. 

4 See Private Letter, No. 59.— Edit. 



26o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the public. I may quit the service, but it 
would be absurd to suspect me of desertion. 
The reputation of these papers is an hon- 
ourable pledge for my attachment to the 
people. To sacrifice a respected character, 
und to renounce the esteem of society, 
requires more than Mr Wedderburne'si re- 
solution ; and though, in him, it was rather 
a profession than a desertion of his principles 
[I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for 
when treachery is in question, I think we 
should make allowances for a Scotchman], 
yet we have seen him in the House of Com- 
mons overwhelmed with confusion, and 
almost bereft of his faculties. — But in truth, 
Sir, I have left no room for an accommo- 
V dation with the piety of St James's. My 
j offences are not to be redeemed by re- 
( cantation or repentance. On one side, our 
warmest patriots would disclaim me as a 
burthen to their honest ambition. On the 
other, the vilest prostitution, if Junius 
could descend to it, would lose its natural 
merit and influence in the cabinet, and 
treachery be no longer a recommendation 
to the royal favour. 

The persons who, till within these few 
years, have been most distinguished by 
their zeal for high church and prerogative, 
are now, it seems, the great assertors of 
the privileges of the House of Commons. 
This sudden alteration of their sentiments 
or language carries with it a suspicious ap- 
pearance. When I hear the undefined 
privileges of the popular branch of the 
legislature exalted by Tories and Jacobites, 
at the expense of those strict rights, -which 
are known to the subject, and Umited by 
the laws, I cannot but suspect, that some 
mischievous scheme is in agitation, to de- 
stroy both law and privilege, by opposing 
them to each other. They who have 

^ Mr Wedderburne, progressively baron 
Loughborough and earl of Rosslyn, had, on the 
i2th of January preceding the date of this letter, 
been promoted to the offices of solicitor-general, 
and cofferes to the queen. His politics may, 
therefore, be ascertained without trouble ; yet 
he had been inducted into public life, under the 
auspices of George Grenville, after the latter had 
professed the principles of Whiggism, and while 
he was a partisan of lord Rockingham : and it is 



uniformly denied the power of the whole 
legislature to alter the descent of the crown, 
and whose ancestors, in rebellion against 
his Majesty's family, have defended that 
doctrine at the hazard of their lives, now 
tell us that privilege of parliament is the 
only rule of right, and the chief security of 
the public freedom. — I fear. Sir, that, while 
forms remain, there has been some material 
change in the substance of our constitution. 
The opinions of these men were too absurd 
to be so easily renounced. Liberal minds 
are open to conviction. — Liberal doctrines 
are capable of improvement. — There are 
proselytes from atheism, but none from 
superstition. — If their present professions 
were sincere, I think they could not but be 
highly offended at seeing a question, con- 
cerning parliamentary privilege, unneces- 
sarily started at a season so unfavourable 
to the House of Commons, and by so very 
mean and insignificant a person as the 
minor Ofislow."^ They knew that the pre- 
sent House of Commons, having com- 
menced hostilities with the people, and 
degraded the authority of the laws by their 
own example, were likely enough to be re- 
sisted, per fas et nefas. If they were really 
friends to privilege, they would have 
thought the question of right too dangerous 
to be hazarded at this season, and without 
the formality of a convention, would have 
left it undecided. 

I have been silent hitherto, though not 
from that shameful indifference about the 
interests of society, which too many of us 
profess, and call moderation, I confess, 
Sir, that I felt the prejudices of my educa- 
tion, in favour of a House of Commons, 
still hanging about me. I thought that a 
question, between law and privilege,^ could 



to this defection from the tenets Mr Wedder- 
burne avowed till this period, that our author 
here alludes. — Edit. 

^ It was this gentleman, now lord Onslow, who 
moved the resolution against the printers already 
noticed ; and who commenced a prosecution for 
defamation against Home, in which he was not 
successful ; and of which the reader will find an 
account in note B. to Private Letter, No. 5, p. 62. 
—Edit. 

3 The transaction referred to is the resistance 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



261 



never be brought to a formal decision, 
without inconvenience to the public service, 
or a manifest diminution of legal liberty ; — 
that it ought therefore to be carefully- 
avoided : and when I saw that the violence 
of the House of Commons had carried them 
too far to retreat, I determined not to de- 
liver a hasty opinion upon a matter of so 
much delicacy and importance. 

The state of things is much altered in 
this country, since it was necessary to pro- 
tect our representatives against the direct 
power of the crown. We have nothing to 
apprehend from prerogative, but every 
thing from undue influence. Formerly it 
was the interest of the people, that the 
privileges of parliament should be left un- 
limited and undefined. At present it is 
not only their interest, but I hold it to be 
essentially necessary to the preservation of 
the constitution, that the privileges of par- 
liament should be strictly ascertained, and 
confined within the narrowest bounds the 
nature of their institution will admit of. 
Upon the same principle, on which I would 
have resisted prerogative in the last cen- 
tury, I now resist privilege. It is indifferent 
to me, whether the crown, by its own im- 
mediate act, imposes new and dispenses 
with old laws, or whether the same arbi- 
trary power produces the same effects 
through the medium of the House of Com- 
mons. We trusted our representatives 
with privileges for their own defence and 
ours. We cannot hinder their desertion, 
but we can prevent their carrying over their 
arms to the service of the enemy. — It will 
be said, that I begin with endeavouring to 
reduce the argument concerning privilege 
to a mere question of convenience ;— that I 
deny at one moment what I would allow at 
another ; and that to resist the power of a 
prostituted House of Commons may estab- 
lish a precedent injurious to all future par- 
liaments. — To this I answer generally, that 
human affairs are in no instance governed 



of the authority of a mere royal proclamation, 
and a mere order of the House of Commons, by 
the magistrates of the city ; the arrests and 
counter-arrests that followed ; and the commit- 



by Strict positive right. If change of cir- 
cumstances were to have no weight in 
directing our conduct and opinions, the 
mutual intercourse of mankind would be 
nothing more than a contention between 
positive and equitable right. Society 
would be a state of war, and law itself 
would be injustice. On this general ground, 
it is highly reasonable, that the degree of 
our submission to privileges, which have 
never been defined by any positive law, 
should be considered as a question of con- 
venience, and proportioned to the con- 
fidence we repose in the integrity of our 
representatives. As to the injury we may 
do to any future and m.ore respectable 
House of Commons, I own I am not now 
sanguine enough to expect a more plentiful 
harvest of parliamentary virtue in one year 
than another. Our political climate is 
severely altered ; and without dwelling 
upon the depravity of modern times, I 
think no reasonable man will expect that, 
as human nature is constituted, the enor- 
mous influence of the crown should cease 
to prevail over the virtue of individuals. 
The mischief lies too deep to be cured by 
any remedy less than some great con- 
vulsion, which may either carry back the 
constitution to its original principles, or 
utterly destroy it. I do not doubt that, in 
the first session after the next election, 
some popular measures may be adopted. 
The present House of Commons have in- 
jured themselves by a too early and public 
profession of their principles, and if a strain 
of prostitution, which had no example, were 
within the reach of emulation, it might be 
imprudent to hazard the experiment too 
soon. But after all. Sir, it is very im- 
material whether a House of Commons 
shall preserve their virtue for a week, a 
month, or a year. The influence which 
makes a septennial parliament dependent 
upon the pleasure of the crown, has a per- 
manent operation, and cannot fail of suc- 
cess. — My premises, I know, will be denied 

meat of the lord mayor and aldermen to the 
Tower. See note to Aliscellaneous Letter, No. 
XCII.— Edit. 



262 



LETTERS. OF JUNIUS. 



in argument, but every man's conscience 
tells him they are true. It remains then to 
be considered, whether it be for the interest 
of the people that privilege of parliament 
(which, 1 in respect to the purposes for 
which it has hitherto been acquiesced un- 
der, is merely nominal) should be con- 
tracted within some certain limits, or 
^vhether the subject shall be left at the 
mercy of a power, arbitrary upon the face 
of it, and notoriously under the direction 
of the crown. 

I do not mean to dechne the question of 
ri^lht. On the contrary, Sir, I join issue 
with the advocates for privilege, and affirm, 
that, ' excepting the cases, wherein the 
House of Commons are a court of judica- 
ture, [to which, from the nature of their 
olfice, a coercive power must belong,] and 
excepting such contempts as immediately 
interrupt their proceedings, they have no 
legal authority to imprison any man for any 
supposed violation of privilege whatsoever.' 
— It is not pretended that privilege, as now 
claimed, has ever been defined or confirmed 
by statute ; neither can it be said, with any 
colour of truth, to be a part of the common 
law of England, which had grown into 
prescription long before we knew any 
thing of the existence of a House of Com- 
mons. As for the law of parliament, it is 
only another name for the privilege in 
question ; and since the power of creating 
new privileges has been formally renounced 
by both Houses, — since there is no code, in 
which we can study the law of parliament, 
we have but one way left to make ourselves 
acquainted with it ; — that is, to compare 
the nature of the institution of a House of 
Commons with the facts upon record. To 
establish a claim of privilegein either House, 
and to distinguish original right from usurpa- 
tion, it must appear that it is indispensably 



^ 'The necessity of securing the House of 
Commons agamst the King's power, so that no 
interruption might be given either to the attend- 
ance of the members in parliament, or to the 
freedom of debate, was the foundation of par- 
liamentary privilege ; and we may observe, in 
all the addresses of new appointed speakers to 
the sovereign, the utmost privilege they demand 
is liberty of speech and freedom from arrests. 



necessary for the performance of the duty 
they are employed in, and also that it has 
been uniformly allowed. From the first part 
of this description it follows clearly, that 
whatever privilege does of right belong to 
the present House of Commons, did equally 
belong to the first assembly of their pre- 
decessors, was as completely vested in 
them, and might have been exercised in 
the same extent. From the second we 
must infer that privileges, which, for seve- 
ral centuries, were not only never allowed, 
but never even claimed by the House of 
Commons, must be founded upon usurpa- 
tion. The constitutional duties of a House 
of Commons are not very complicated nor 
mysterious. They are to propose or assent 
to wholesome laws for the benefit of the 
nation. They are to grant the necessary 
aids to the king ;— petition for the redress 
of grievances, and prosecute treason or 
high crimes against the state. If unlimited 
privilege be necessary to the performance 
of these duties, we have reason to conclude 
that, for many centuries after the institution 
of the House of Commons, they were never 
performed. I am not bound to prove a 
negative, but I appeal to the English his- 
tory when I affirm that, with the excep- 
tions already stated (which yet I might 
safely relinquish), there is no precedent, 
from the year 1265 to the death of queen 
Elizabeth, of the House of Commons hav- 
ing imprisoned any man (not a member of 
their House) for contempt or breach of 
privilege. In the most flagrant cases, and 
when their acknowledged privileges were 
most grossly violated, the /(^f^r Commons, 
as they then styled themselves, never took 
the power of punishment into their own 
hands. They either sought redress by pe- 
tition to the king, or, what is more remark- 
able, applied for justice to the House of 



The very word privilege means no more than 
immunity, or a safeguard to the party who pos- 
sesses it, and can never be construed into an 
active power of invading the rights of others.' — 
Author. 

This and some of the following notes form part 
of a letter signed a Whig, and will be found in the 
Miscellaneous Collection numbered XCV. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



263 



Lords ; and when satisfaction was denied 
them or delayed, their only remedy was to 
refuse proceeding upon the king's business. 
So little conception had our ancestors of 
the monstrous doctrines now maintained 
concerning privilege, that, in the reign of 
Elizabeth, even liberty of speech, the vital 
principle of a deliberate assembly, was re- 
strained, by the Queen's authority, to a 
simple aye or no, and this restriction, 
though imposed upon three successive par- 
liaments, ^ was never once disputed by the 
House of Commons. 

I know there are many precedents of 
arbitrary commitments for contempt. But, 
besides that they are of too modern a date 
to warrant a presumption that such a power 
was originally vested in the House of Com- 
mons, — Fact alone does not constitute 
Right. If it does, general warrants were 
lawful. — An ordinance of the two Houses 
has a force equal to law ; and the criminal 
jurisdiction assumed by the Commons in 
1621, in the case of Edward Lloyd, 2 is a 
good precedent, to warrant the like pro- 
ceedings against any man, who shall unad- 
visedly mention the folly of a king, or the 
ambition of a princess. — The truth is, Sir, 
that the greatest and most exceptionable 
part of the privileges now contended for, 
were introduced and asserted by a House 
of Commons which abohshed both mon- 
archy and peerage, and whose proceedings, 
although they ended in one glorious act of 
substantial justice, could no way be recon- 
ciled to the forms of the constitution. 
Their successors profited by the example, 
and confirmed their power by a moderate 
or a popular use of it. Thus it grew by 
degrees, from a notorious innovation at one 



^ In the years 1593— 1597— and 1601. 
_ ^ Lloyd, while a prisoner in the Fleet, had 
ridiculed the daughter of James the First, and her 
consort, for which complaint was made to the 
House of Commons, who, on investigation, chose 
to think the words sufficiently proved, and sen- 
tenced )iim to be ' set on the pillory at West- 
minster for two hours, to ride backward upon a 
horse without a saddle, with the horse's tail in 
his hand, to have labels affixed on his head, in- 
dicating that he had been found guilty of using 
" false, malicious, and despiteful speeches against 



period, to be tacitly admitted as the privi- 
lege of parliament at another. 

If however it could be proved, from con- 
siderations of necessity or convenifenre, 
that an unlimited power of commitment 
ought to be intrusted to the House of 
Commons, and that in fact they have 
exercised it without opposition, still, in 
contemplation of law, the presumption is 
strongly against them. It is a leading 
maxim of the laws of England (and with- 
out it, all laws are nugatory) that there is 
no right without a remedy, nor any legal 
power without a legal course to carry it into 
effect. Let the power, now in question, be 
tried by this rule. — The speaker issues his 
warrant of attachment. The party attached 
either resists force with force, or appeals to 
a magistrate, who declares the warrant 
illegal, and discharges the prisoner. Does 
the law provide no legal means for enforc- 
ing a legal warrant ? Is there no regular 
proceeding pointed out in our law books to 
assert and vindicate the authority of so 
high a court as the House of Commons? 
The question is answered directly by the 
fact. Their unlawful commands are resist- 
ed, and they have no remedy. The impri- 
sonment of their own members is revenge 
indeed, but it is no assertion of the privilege 
they contend for.^ Their whole proceeding 
stops, and there they stand, ashamed to 
retreat, and unable to advance. Sir, these 
ignorant men should be informed that the 
execution of the laws of England is not left 
in this uncertain, defenceless condition. If 
the process of the courts of Westminster- 
hall be resisted, they have a direct course, 
sufficient to enforce submission. The court 
of King's Bench commands the sheriff to 



the king's daughter and her husband," to be 
again pilloried in Cheapside, and to be fined 
;i^iooo.' — Edit. 

3 Upon their own principles, they should have 
committed Mr Wilkes, who had been guilty of 
a greater offence than even the lord mayor or 
alderman Oliver. But after repeatedly ordering 
him to attend, xkv&j at last adjourned beyond the 
day appointed for his attendance, and by this 
mean, pitiful evasion, gave up the point. — Such 
is the force of conscious guilt ! — Author. 

Sec note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. XCII. 
—Edit. 



264 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



raise the posse comitates. The courts of 
Chancery and Exchequer issue ^.writ of re- 
bellion, which must also be supported, if 
necessary, by the power of the county. — To 
whom will our honest representatives direct 
their writ of rebellion ? The guards, I 
doubt not, are wilhng enough to be em- 
ployed, but they know nothing of the 
doctrine of writs, and may think it neces- 
sary to wait for a letter from lord Barring- 
ton.i 

It may now be objected to me, that my 
arguments prove too much ; for that cer- 
tainly there may be instances of contempt 
and insult to the House of Commons, 
which do not fall within my own excep- 
tions, yet, in regard to the dignity of the 
House, ought not to pass unpunished. Be it 
so. — The courts of criminal jurisdiction are 
open to prosecutions, which the attorney- 
general may commence by information or 
indictment. A libel, tending to asperse or 
vilify the House of Commons, or any of 
their members, may be as severely punished 



^ In allusion to his letter of thanks to the 
guards for their conduct in St George's Fields. 
See the letter and the subject more particularly- 
touched upon in the Miscellaneous Collection, 
No. XXIV.— Edit. 

* ' If it be demanded, in case a subject should 
be committed by either House, for a matter mani- 
festly out of their jurisdiction, what remedy can 
he have ? I answer, that it cannot well be 
imagined that the law, which favours nothing 
more than the liberty of the subject, should give 
us a remedy against commitments by the king 
himself, appearing to be illegal, and yet give us 
no manner of redress against a commitment by 
our fellow-subjects, equally appearing to be un- 
warranted. But as this is a case which I am 
persuaded will never happen, it seems needless 
over nicely to examine it.' Hawkifts 2, no. — 
N. B. He was a good lawyer, but no -prophet. 

3 That their practice might be every way con- 
formable to their principles, the House proceeded 
to advise the crown to publish a proclamation 
universally acknowledged to be illegal. Mr 
Moreton publicly protested against it before it 
was issued ; and lord Mansfield, though not 
scrupulous to an extreme, speaks of it with hor- 
ror. It is remarkable enough, that the very men 
who advised the proclamation, and who hear it 
arraigned every day both within doors and with- 
out, are not daring enough to utter one word in 
its defence, nor have they ventured to take the 
least notice of Mr Wilkes for discharging the 
persons apprehended under it. 

4 Our author refers to the erasure of the trans- 



in the court of King's Bench, as a libel upon 
the king. Mr De Grey thought so, wlien 
he drew up the information upon my Letter 
to his Majesty, or he had no meaning in 
charging it to be a scandalous libel upon 
the House of Commons. In my opinion, 
they would consult their real dignity much 
better by appealing to the laws when they 
are offended, than by violating the first 
principle of natural justice, which forbids 
us to be judges, when we are parties to the 
cause. 2 

I do not mean to pursue them through 
the remainder of their proceedings. In 
their first resolutions, it is possible they 
might have been deceived by ill-considered 
precedents. For the rest there is no colour 
of palliation or excuse. They have advised 
the king to resume a power of dispensing 
with the laws by royal proclamation ; 3 and 
kings, we see, are ready enough to follow 
such advice. — By mere violence, and with- 
out the shadow of right, they have expung- 
ed the record * of a judicial proceeding.^ 



actions of the sitting aldermen from the book of 
recognizances, as stated in note to Miscellaneous 
Letter, No. XCII.— Edit. 

5 Lord Chatham very properly called this the 
act of a mob, not of a senate. — Author. 

In a speech made in support of the following 
motion submitted to the House of Lords, April 
30, 1771 :— 

The duke of Richmond moved, 'That an 
humble address be presented to his Majesty, 
most dutifully and earnestly beseeching his Ma- 
jesty, that, tmder the late violations of the rights 
of the electors of Great Britain, in the election 
for Middlesex, still imredressed, and in the pre- 
sent conflict which has so unhappily arisen be- 
tween the claims of privilege of the House of 
Commons on one side, and those of magistracy 
on the other, his Majesty will, in his paternal 
wisdom, deign to open the way to compose this 
alarming warfare ; and that, in order to prevent 
the said House and the nation from being in- 
volved in intemperate discussions of undefined 
powers, which, in the extreme, may endanger 
the constitution, and tend to shake the tranquil- 
lity of the kingdom, his Majesty will be graciously 
pleased to recur to the recent sense of his people, 
by dissolving, after the end of this session, the 
present parliament, and calling, with convenient 
dispatch, a new parliament.' 

Lord Chatham, in supporting this motion, 
entered largely into the consideration of the 
melancholy state of the country ; — the depraved 
system of governnient, which had, in a very few 
years, reduced us' from a most flourishing to a 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



265 



Nothing remained, but to attribute to their 
own vote a power of stopping the whole 
distribution of criminal and civil justice. 

The public virtues of the chief magistrate 
have long since ceased to be in question. 
But it is said that he has private good 
qualities, and I myself have been ready to 
acknowledge them. They are now brought 
to the test. If he loves his people, he will 
dissolve a parliament, which they can never 
confide in or respect. — If he has any regard 
for his own honour, he will disdain to be 
any longer connected with such abandoned 
prostitution. But if it w^ere conceivable, that 
a king of this country had lost all sense of 



most miserable condition. He went through the 
whole proceedings of the House of Commons in 
the late business of the printers, and arraigned 
every part of it in the strongest terms. He 
warmly defended the magistrates in the con- 
scientious discharge of their duty ; — that the 
House, in committing them to prison without 
hearing their defence upon the point of privilege, 
had been guilty of a gross and palpable act of 
tyranny ; — that they had heard the prostituted 
electors of Shoreham in defence of an agreement 
to sell a borough by auction, and had refused to 
hear the lord mayor of London, in defence of 
the laws of England ; — that their expunging, by 
mere force, the encry of the recognizance, was 
the act of a 77wb, not of a parliament ; — but that 
their daring to assume a power of stopping all 
prosecutions by their vote, struck at once at the 
whole system of the laws ; — that it was solely to 
the measures of government, equally violent and 
absurd, that Mr Wilkes owed all his import- 
ance ; — that the king's ministers, supported by 
the slavish concurrence of the House of Com- 
mons, had once made him a person of the greatest 
consequence in the kingdom ; — that they in 
effect had made him an alderman of London, 
and representative of the county of Middlesex ; 
and now, it seems, they intend to make him 
sheriff, and, in due course, lord mayor of Lon- 
don ; — that the proceedings of the House of Com- 
mons, in regard to this gentleman, made the very 
name of parliament ridiculous ; — that after re- 
peated resolutions, by which they had declared 
him amenable to their jurisdiction, they had 
shamefully given up the point at last, and, in the 
face of the world, acknowledged him to be their 
lord and master. — That there remained but one 
possible remedy for the disorders, with which the 
government of this country was universally in- 
fected ; — that to save the name and institution 
of parliaments from contempt, this House of 
Commons must be dissolved. This he hoped might 
restore good government on one side, — good 
humour and tranquillity on the other ; — yet that 
this was rather a hope in him than any sanguine 
expectation. He feared that it might prove only 



personal honour, and all concern for the 
welfare of his subjects, I confess, Sir, I 
should be contented to renounce the forms 
of the constitution once more, if there were 
no other way to obtain substantial justice 
for the people. 1 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, I May, 1771. 

They, who object to detached 



a temporary and partial remedy ; — that to resist 
the enormous influence of the crown, some 
stronger barriers must be erected in defence of 
the constitution. That formerly the inconveni- 
ences of shortening the duration of parliaments 
had had great weight with him, but that now it 
was no longer a question of convenience, the 
sununa reru7ii is at stake, — your whole constitu- 
tion is giving way ; — and therefore, with the 
most deliberate and solemn conviction to his 
understanding, he now declared himself a con- 
vert TO TRIENNIAL PARLIAMENTS.' — EdIT. 

^ When Mr Wilkes was to be punished, they 
made no scruple about the privileges of parlia- 
ment ; and although it was well known as any 
matter of public record and uninterrupted custom 
could be, that the members of either House are 
privileged, except in case of treaso?i, felony, or 
breach of peace, they declared without hesitation 
that privilege of parliament did not extend to 
the case of a seditious libel ; and undoubtedly 
they would have done the same if Mr Wilkes had 
been prosecuted for any other misdemeanour 
whatsoever. The ministry are of a sudden grown 
wonderfully careful of privileges, which their 
predecessors were as ready to invade. The 
known laws of the land, the rights of the subject, 
the sanctity of charters, and the reverence due 
to our magistrates, must all give way, without 
question or resistance, to a privilege of which no 
man knows either the origin or the extent. The 
House of Commons judge of their own privileges 
without appeal : — thej'- may take offence at the 
most innocent action, and imprison the person 
who offends them, during their arbitrary will and 
pleasure. The party has no remedy ; — he can- 
not appeal from their jurisdiction : and if he 
questions the privilege, which he is supposed to 
have violated, it becomes an aggravation of his 
offence. Surely this doctrine is not to be found 
in Magna Charta. If it be admitted without 
limitation, I affirm that there is neither law nor 
liberty in this kingdom. We are the slaves of the 
House of Commons, and, through them, we are 
the slaves of the king and his ministers. — Ano- 
nymous. 



266 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



parts of JUNIUS'S last letter, either do not 
mean him fairly, or have not considered 
the general scope and course of his argu- 
ment. — There are degrees in all the private 
vices. — Why not in public prostitution ? — 
The influence of the crown naturally makes 
a septennial parliament dependent. — Does 
it follow that every House of Commons will 
plunge at once into the lowest depths of 
prostitution?-— Junius supposes that the 
present House of Commons, in going such 
enormous lengths, have been imprudent to 
themselves, as well as wicked to the public ; 
— that their example is not within the reach 
of emulation. ; — and that, in the first session 
after the next election, some popular mea- 
sures may probably be adopted. He does 
not expect that a dissolution of parliament 
will destroy corruption, but that at least it 
will be a check and terror to their successors, 
who will have seen that, in flagrant cases, 
their constituents ^<3;« and wz7/ interpose with 
effect. — After all, Sir, will you not endeav- 
our to remove or alleviate the most danger- 
ous symptoms, because you cannot eradicate 
the disease? Will you not punish treasoti 
or parricide, because the sight of a gib- 
bet does not prevent highway robberies? 
When the main argument of Junius is ad- 
mitted to be unanswerable, I think it would 
become the minor critic, who hunts for 
blemishes, to be a little more distrustful of 
his own sagacity. — The other objection is 
hardly worth an answer. When Junius 
observes that kings are ready enough to 
follow such advice, he does not mean to 
insinuate that, if the advice of parharaent 
were good, the king would be so ready to 
follow it. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLVI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 22 May, 1771. 

Very early in the debate upon the 
decision of the Middlesex election, it was 
well observed by Junius, that the House 
of Commons had not only exceeded their 



boasted precedent of the expulsion and 
subsequent incapacitation of Mr Walpole, 
but that they had not even adhered to it 
strictly as far as it went. After convicting 
Mr Dyson of giving a false quotation from 
the journals,! and having explained the 
purpose which that contemptible fraud was 
intended to answer, he proceeds to state 
the vote itself, by which Mr Walpole's sup- 
posed incapacity was declared, — viz. ' Re- 
solved, That Robert Walpole, Esq. having 
been this session of parliament committed 
a prisoner to the Tower, and expelled this 
House for a high breach of trust in the exe- 
cution of his office, and notorious corrup- 
tion when secretary at war, was, and is, in- 
capable of being elected a member to serve 
in this present parHament : ' — and then 
observes that, from the terms of the vote, 
we have no right to annex the incapacita- 
tion to the expulsion only, for that, as the 
proposition stands, it must arise equally 
from the expulsion and the commitment to 
the Tower. I believe. Sir, no man, who 
knows any thing of dialectics, or who un- 
derstands Enghsh, will dispute the truth 
and fairness of this construction. But Ju- 
nius has a great authority to support him, 
which, to speak with the duke of Grafton, 
I accidentally met with this morning in the 
course of my reading. It contains an 
admonition, which cannot be repeated too 
often. Lord Somers, in his excellent tract 
upon the rights of the people, after reciting 
the vote of the convention, of the 28th of 
January, 1689, viz. — 'That king James the 
Second, having endeavoured to subvert the 
constitution of this kingdom by breaking 
the original contract between king and 
people ; and by the advice of Jesuits and 
other wicked persons having violated the 
fundamental laws, and having withdrawn 
himself out of this kingdom, hath abdicated 
the government, &c.' — makes this observa- 
tion upon it. ' The word abdicated relates 
to all the clauses aforegoing, as well as to 
his deserting the kingdom, or else they 
would have been wholly in vain.' And that 



See Letter XX., p. 183, note.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



267 



there might be no pretence for confining 
the abdication merely to the withdrawing, 
Lord Somers farther observes, That king 
James, by refusing to govern us according 
to that law by which he held the crown^ did 
implicitly renounce his title to it. 

If JuNius's construction of the vote 
against Mr Walpole be now admitted (and 
indeed I cannot comprehend how it can 
honestly be disputed), the advocates of the 
House of Commons must either give up 
their precedent entirely, or be reduced to 
the necessity of maintaining one of the 
grossest absurdities imaginable, viz. 'That 



^ Mr Wilkes having been again returned as 
one of the members for the county of Middle- 
sex, in the parliaments of 1774 and 1780, made 
various fruitless efforts to get the decision of the 
House of Commons on this most interesting con- 
troversy erased from their journals, which heat 
length effected, on the dissolution of the admin- 
istration of which lord North had been at the 
head from the time of the resignation of the 
duke of Grafton, in the year 1770. This occurred 
May 3, 1782. 

Mr Wilkes prefaced his motion in the follow- 
ing address to the House. 

'Mr Speaker, 

' I think myself peculiarly happy at the 
present moment, that I have the honour of sub- 
mitting to the House an important national ques- 
tion, respecting the rights of election, when the 
friends and favourites of the people enjoy, with 
the smiles of our sovereign, the offices of trust 
and power in the state, accompanied with that 
fair influence, which is necessarily created by 
great ability, perfect integrity, the purest political 
virtue, and the remembrance of their former up- 
right conduct in the cause of the people. If the 
people of England, Sir, have at any period ex- 
plicitly and fully declared an opinion on a 
momentous constitutional question, it has been in 
regard to the Middlesex election in 1768, and the 
subsequent most profligate proceedings of an ad- 
ministration, hostile, by system, to the rights of 
this country, and every part of the British empire. 
An instance cannot be found in our history of a 
more general concurrence of sentiment among the 
freeholders of England, and they were joined by 
almost every borough and corporation in the 
southern part of the island. I am satisfied, 
therefore, that I now shall find the real friends of 
the people determined and zealous in the support 
of their just claims and undoubted privileges. 

' Hitherto, Sir, every attempt for the recovery 
of this invaluable franchise has been rendered 
fruitless by the arts and machinations of power 
in the hands of wicked men : and I may with 
truth assert, that the body of the people long 
addressed, petitioned, and remonstrated with 



a commitment to the Tower is a constitu- 
ent part of, and contributes half, at least, 
to the incapacitation of the person who 
suffers it.' 

I need not make you any excuse for en- 
deavouring to keep alive the attention of 
the public to the decision of the Middlesex 
election. The more I consider it, the 
more I am convinced that, as a fact, it is 
indeed highly injurious to the rights of the 
people ; but that, as a precedent, it is one 
of the most dangerous that ever was estab- 
lished against those who are to come after 
us.i Yet I am so far a moderate man, that 



manly firmness and perseverance, without the 
least effect, or even impression. The full redress 
demanded by this Injured nation, seems reserved 
to distinguish the present propitious asra of pub- 
lic liberty among the early and blooming hon- 
ours of an administration, which possesses the 
confidence, and daily conciliates the affections, 
of a brave and sensible people. Their voice was 
never heard In a more clear and distinct manner, 
than on this point of the first magnitude for all 
the electors of this kingdom ; and I trust will 
now be heard favourably. The general resent- 
ment and indignation ran so high against the 
House of Commons, which committed the out- 
rage, that their immediate dissolution became 
the prayer of numberless petitions to the throne. 
No man scrupled to declare them unworthy to 
exist in their political capacity. The public' 
pronounced them guilty of sacrificing and be- 
traying the rights which they were called upon 
by every tie of justice and duty to defend. 
The noble spirit of the freeholders of Middlesex, 
persevering in the best of causes, undaunted by 
all the menaces of power, was the subject of the 
most general applause and admiration. The 
voice of the people was then in the harsh and 
sharp tone of passion and anger against ministers. 
It will, I am persuaded, soon be In the soft and 
pleasing accents of joy and thankfulness to our 
deliverers. 

' It is scarcely possible. Sir, to state a question 
in which the people of this free country are more 
materially interested, than In the right of elec- 
tion ; for It is the share which they have reserved 
to themselves in the legislature. When It was 
wrested from them by violence, the constitution 
was torn up by the roots. 

' I have now the happiness of seeing the Trea- 
sury bench filled with the friends of the constitu- 
tion, the guardians and lovers of liberty, who 
have been unwearied and uniform In the defence 
of all our rights, and In particular of this Invalu- 
able franchise. I hail the present auspicious 
moment, and with Impatience expect the com- 
pletion of what I have long and fervently desired 
for my friends and country, for the present age, 
and a free posterity. The former conduct of 



268 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



I verily believe the majority of the House 
of Commons, when they passed this dan- 



those now in power, affords me the most sanguine 
hopes of this day seeing justice done to a people, 
to whom they have so frequently appealed, who 
now look up to them with ardent expectation, 
with pleasure and esteem. Consistency, Sir, has 
drawn the right line of their political conduct to 
this period. It will now point out the same path 
of public virtue and honour. May I be indulged 
in a hint, which I mean to extend much beyond 
the business of the day, when I say that consist- 
ency will be attended with that stability and 
perfect security, which are the objects of every 
good man's wishes for them ? They have given 
us a fair earnest of their reverence for the con- 
stitution, by their support of two bills, essentially 
necessary to restore the purity and independ- 
ency of parliament ; / Jitean the bill for prevent- 
ing contractors from sitting in the House of 
Commons, and the bill for disabling officers of 

the revenue from voting at elections' Mr 

Wilkes was here interrupted with a message by 
Sir Francis Molyneux, gentleman usher of the 
black rod, desiring the immediate attendance of 
the House of Commons in the House of Lords. 
The Speaker then went up to the House of Peers ; 
and after his return and report of what had 
passed, 

Mr Wilkes said : 

* Mr Speaker, 

' I return my thanks to the black rod for 
so luckily interposing in favour of this House, 
when I might possibly have again tired them 
with the important, however stale, case of the 
Middlesex election, which their patient ear has 
for several years, with much good nature, suf- 
fered. I will now make some return to their 
Indulgence, in profiting by the circumstance of 
this happy interruption, and not saying a single 
word about Walpole or WoUaston, Coke or 
Blackstone. I will not detain the House longer, 
than by observing the parliamentary form of de- 
siring the clerk to read the resolution of the 17th 
of February, 1769.' Which having been com- 
plied with, he then moved, 'That the entry of 
the resolution of the 17th of Feb. 1769, "That 
John Wilkes, Esq., having been in this session 
of parliament expelled this House, was, and is, 
incapable of being elected a member to serve 
in this present parliament," might be expunged 
from their journals, it being subversive of the 
rights of the whole body of the electors of this 
kingdom.' This motion was (after some op- 
position from the late Mr Fox, then secretary 
of state, and from the late lord Melville, then 
lord advocate for Scotland, the former of 
whom had strenuou-sly supported the whole of 
the resolutions passed by the House of Com- 
mons, in respect to the Middlesex election) 
carried on a division, 185 to 47. Mr Wilkes, as 
soon as this question was disposed of, moved, 
' That all the declarations, orders, and resolu- 
tions of the House, respecting his election for the 



gerous vote, neither understood the ques- 
tion, nor knew the consequence of what 



county of Middlesex, as a void election, the due 
and legal election of Mr Luttrell into parliament 
for the said county, and his own incapacity to be 
elected a member to serve in the said parliament, 
be expunged ; ' which motion was, for the rea- 
sons before given, carried without a division. 

Thus terminated one of the most severe, and 
on the part of the servants of the crown most 
unconstitutional, political contests, that ever 
agitated the people of this country ; not leaving 
a rack behind, to constitute, as our author em- 
phatically terms it, 'a precedent the most dan- 
gerous that ever was established against those 
who are to come after us.' As the merit of the 
erasure of these obnoxious resolutions from the 
journals of the House of Commons, is solely due 
to the talents and perseverance of Mr Wilkes, it 
will not be unfair to defend his motives and pre- 
tensions as a patriot, from the detraction of 
contemporary adversaries, as well as from his 
more modern opponents. The first political 
offence of which he appears to have been guilty, 
was the severity with which he attacked the ad- 
ministration of lord Bute, and which was justly 
characterized for being as deficient in ability as 
it was odiously unconstitutional. For this attack 
a general warrant was issued, his papers were 
seized, and himself committed a close prisoner 
to the Tower. He was afterwards prosecutgd 
for the republication of the North Briton, No. 
45, the vehicle of his political lucubrations, and 
for the Essay on Woman, which had been sur- 
reptitiously stolen from him by a man of the 
name of Curry, employed in printing it at his 
private press, at the instigation of, and under 
the promise of ample reward and protection from, 
Philip Carteret Webb, the solicitor to the Trea- 
sury. Previous to the trial, Wilkes fled to 
France, where he remained for some years ; in 
the mean time he had been found guilty in 
the King's Bench of printing and publishing 
both libels ; and not appearing in due time to 
receive the judgment of the court, he was out- 
lawed. A short time previous to the dissolution 
of parliament in the year 176S, he returned to 
this country, and was elected member for the 
county of Middlesex. In the mean while, he 
surrendered himself to the King's . Bench, and 
having claimed the benefit of certain errors in 
the writ of outlawry, the same were, after solemn 
argument, admitted by the court, and the out- 
lawry was reversed. A few days subsequent to 
this determination, the judgment of the court 
was pronounced on him for publishing the libels ; 
for the former he was sentenced to pay a fine of 
;^5oo to the king, and to be imprisoned ten 
months ; and for the latter, he was fined in the 
like sum, and sentenced to twelve months' im- 
prisonment ; and was further ordered to find 
security for his good behaviour for seven years, 
himself in ^1000 and two sureties in ;^5oo each. 
His expulsion from the House of Commons, and 
the consequences of it, are the subject of several 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 269 


they were doing. Their motives were 
rather despicable than criminal, in the 
extreme. One effect they certainly did not 
foresee. They are now reduced to such a 
situation, that if a member of the present 
House of Commons were to conduct him- 
self ever so improperly, and in reality de- 
serve to be sent back to his constituents 
with a mark of disgrace, they would not 
dare to expel him ; because they know that 
the people, in order to try again the great 
question of right, or to thwart an odious 
House of Commons, would probably over- 
look his immediate imworthiness, and re- 
turn the same person to parliament. — But, 
in time, the precedent will gain strength. 
A future House of Commons will have no 
such apprehensions, consequently will not 
scruple to follow a precedent, which they 
did not establish. The miser himself sel- 
dom lives to enjoy the fruit of his extortion ; 
but his heir succeeds to him of course, and 
takes possession without censure. No man 
expects him to make restitution, and no 


matter for his title, he lives quietly upon 
the estate. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 


LETTER XLVII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 25 May, 1771, 

I CONFESS my partiality to Ju- 
nius, and feel a considerable pleasure in 
being able to communicate any thing to 
the public, in support of his opinions. The 
doctrine laid down in his last letter, con- 
cerning the power of the House of Com- 
mons to commit for contempt, is not so 
new as it appeared to many people, who, 
dazzled with the name of privilege, had 
never suffered themselves to examine the 
question fairly. In the course of 7ny read- 
ing this morning, I met with the following 
passage in the journals of the House of 
Commons. (Vol. ist, page 603.) Upon 


of the Letters of this volume, as well as of 
the notes which have been added to them. Not 
long previous to his release from prison, he was 
electedAIderman of Farringdon Without; shortly 
afterwards one of the Sheriffs of London, and in 
due course Lord Mayor ;_ and on the death of 
Mr Hopkins, Chamberlain. At a subsequent 
period of Mr Wilkes's life, when the violence of 
the politics which had raised him to these several 
respectable situations had altogether subsided, 
he was attacked, more than once, on the annual 
election of Chamberlain, and other city officers, 
with a demand of the previous resignation of his 
gown as an alderman of London, which he 
always most resolutely refused, declaring that 
no consideration on earth should induce him to 
forego the honour which he felt had been con- 
ferred upon him by his election to the magistracy 
of the city of London, and by which determina- 
tion he ran considerable risk of losing his elec- 
tion to the former lucrative situation ; an in- 
stance of disinterestedness not often to be met 
with in those who most confidently lay claim to 
patriotism, which certainly places his character 
in a higher point of view than many have been 
willing to allow to it : • and, in so far as the 
motives which actuated his political conduct can 
be called in question, adds to the value of the 
obligations conferred upon us, by his able and 
successful opposition to general warrants ; by the 
aid and assistance afforded the printers in resist- 
ing the violence of their representatives, on the 
subject of reporting the debates in parliament ; 
and by his perseverance in vindicating the rights 


of the electors of Great Britain, in procuring the 
erasure fromthe journals of the House of Com- 
mons, of their most unconstitutional determina- 
tion on the much agitated question of the Mid- 
dlesex election. With respect to the private 
character of Mr Wilkes in early life, the writer 
of this note will not venture to make any defence, 
though he trusts to be excused if he quotes the 
apology which was made for him by a friend, in 
the year 1769. 'As to his private foibles, I shall 
only add, that he may apply what a very eccen- 
tric genius of this age has said of himself: My 
own passions, and the passions and interests of 
other people still more, have led me aside. I 
launched into the deep before I had loaded 
ballast enough. If the ship did not sink, the 
cargo was thrown overboard. The storm itself 
threw me into port' Mr Wilkes, after he lost 
his election for the county of Middlesex, in the 
year 1790, lived in considerable retirement, and 
much respected. His literary attainments were 
of the higher order, and as a political controver- 
sialist, itw men were equal to him. Not many 
years before his death, he was applied to by the 
late Mr H. S. Woodfall to write some explana- 
tory notes for a new edition of these Letters, 
which by some have been erroneously attributed 
to his pen, but declined it, on the ground, as he 
stated, of not wishing to pay a second visit to 
the prison of the King's Bench. Mr Wilkes 
died Dec. 26, 1797, in the 71st year of his age. 
A fac-simile of his hand-writing will be found at 
the beginning of this work.— Edit. 



270 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



occasion of a jurisdiction unlawfully as- 
sumed by the House in the year 1621, Mr 
attorney-general Noye gave his opinion as 
follows. ' No doubt but, in some cases, 
this House may give judgment ; — in mat- 
ters of returns, and concerning members of 
our House, or falling out in our view in 
parliament; but, for foreign matters, know- 
eth not how we can judge it. — Knoweth 
not that we have been used to give judg- 
ment in any case, but those before-men- 
tioned.' 

Sir Edward Coke, upon the same sub- 
ject, says (page 604), ' No question but 
this is a House of record, and that it hath 
power of judicature in some cases — have 
power to judge of returns and members of 
our House ; one, no member, offending out 
' of the parliament, when he came hither and 
jtistified it, was censured for it.' 

Now, Sir, if you will compare the opinion 
of these great sages of the law with JuNius's 
doctrine, you will find they tally exactly. — 
He allows the power of the House to com- 
mit their own members (which however 
they may grossly abuse) . He allows their 
power in cases where they are acting as a 
court of judicature, viz. elections, returns, 
&c. — and he allows it in such contempts as 
immediately interrupt their proceedings, or, 
as Mr Noye expresses it, falling out in 
their view in parliament. 

They, who would carry the privileges of 
parliament farther than Junius, either do 
not mean well to the pubUc, or know not 
what they are doing. The government of 
England is a government of law. We be- 
tray ourselves, we contradict the spirit of 
our laws, and we shake the whole system 
of English jurisprudence, whenever we in- 
trust a discretionary power over the life, 
liberty, or fortune of the subject, to any 
man, or set of men, whatsoever, upon a 
presumption that it will not be abused. 
PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 28 May, 1771. 

Any man, who takes the trouble 
of perusing the journals of the House of 
Commons, will soon be convinced, that 
very little, if any regard at all, ought to be 
paid to the resolutions of one branch of 
the legislature, declaratory of the law of 
the land, or even of what they call the law 
of parliament. It will appear that these 
resolutions have no one of the properties, 
by which, in this country particularly, lata 
is distinguished from mere will and plea- 
sure ; but that, on the contrary, they bear 
every mark of a power arbitrarily assumed 
and capriciously applied : — That they are 
usually made in times of contest, and to 
serve some unworthy purpose of passion or 
party ; — that the law is seldom declared 
until after the fact, by which it is supposed 
to be violated ; — that legislation and juris- 
diction are united in the same persons, and 
exercised at the same moment ; — and that 
a court from which there is no appeal, 
assumes an original jurisdiction in a crim- 
inal case ; — in short. Sir, to collect a thou- 
sand absurdities into one mass, ' we have a 
law, which cannot be known because it is 
ex post facto, the party is both legislator 
and judge, and the jurisdiction is without 
appeal.' Well might the judges say. The 
law of parliament is above us. 

You will not wonder, Sir, that, with these 
qualifications, the declaratory resolutions 
of the House of Commons should appear 
to be in perpetual contradiction, not only 
to common sense and to the laws we are 
acquainted with (and which alone we can 
obey), but even to one another. I was led 
to trouble you with these observations by a 
passage, which, to speak in lute-string, / 
met with this morning in the course of my 
reading, and upon which I mean to put a 
question to the advocates for privilege. — 
On the 8th of March, 1704 (vide Journals, 
Vol. 14, p. 565), the House thought pro- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



271 



per to come to the following resolutions. — 
I. ' That no commoner of England, com- 
mitted by the House of Commons for breach 
of privilege or contempt of that House, 
ought to be, by any writ of Habeas Corpus, 
made to appear in any other place, or be- 
fore any other judicature, during that ses- 
sion of parliament, wherein such person 
was so committed." 

2. ' That the serjeant at arms, attending 
this House, do make no return of, or yield 
any obedience to, the said writs of Habeas 
Corpus, and for such his refusal, that he 
have the protection of the House of Com- 
mons.' ^ 

Welbore Ellis, What say you? Is this 
the law of parliament, or is it not ? I am a 
plain man, Sir, and cannot follow you 
through the phlegmatic forms of an ora- 
tion. Speak out, Grildrig,^— say yes, or 
no. — If you say yes, I shall then enquire by 
what authority Mr De Grey, the honest 
lord Mansfield, and the barons of the 
Exchequer, dared to grant a writ of Habeas 
Corpus for bringing the bodies of the lord 
mayor and Mr Oliver before them, and 
why the lieutenant of the Tower made any 
return to a writ, which the House of Com- 
mons had, in a similar instance, declared to 
be unlawful. — If you say no, take care you 
do not at once give up the cause, in sup- 
port of which you have so long and so 
laboriously tortured your understanding. 
Take care you do not confess that there is 
no test by which we can distinguish, — no 
evidence by which we can determine, — 
what is, and what is not, the law of parlia- 
ment. The resolutions I have quoted stand 
upon your journals, uncontroverted and 
unrepealed ; — they contain a declaration of 
the law of parUament by a court, com- 



'^ If there be in reality any such law in Eng- 
land, as the lazv of parliament, which (under 
the exceptions stated in my letter on privilege) I 
confess, after long deliberation, I very much 
doubt, it certainly is not constituted by, nor can 
it be collected from, the resolutions of either 
House, whether e?iacthig or declaratory. I de- 
sire the reader will compare the above resolution 
of the year 1704, with the following of the 3rd of 
April, 1628. — ' Resolved, That the -wiitoi Habeas 
Corpus cannot be denied, but ought to be grant- 



petent to the question, and whose decision, 
as you and lord Mansfield say, must be 
law, because there is no appeal from it, and 
they were made, not hastily, but after long 
deliberation upon a constitutional question. 
— What further sanction or solemnity will 
you annex to any resolution of the present 
House of Commons, beyond what appears 
upon the face of those two resolutions, the 
legality of which you now deny ? If you say 
diat parliaments are not infallible, and that 
queen Anne, in consequence of the violent 
proceedings of that House of Commons, 
was obliged to prorogue and dissolve them, 
I shall agree with you very heartily, and 
think that the precedent ought to be fol- 
lowed immediately. But you, Mr Ellis, 
who hold this language, are inconsistent 
with your own principles. You have 
hitherto maintained that the House of 
Commons are the sole judges of their own 
privileges, and that their declaration does, 
ipso facto, constitute the law of parliament ; 
yet now you confess that parliaments are 
fallible, and that their resolutions may be 
illegal, consequently that their resolutions 
do not constitute the law of parliament. 
When the king was urged to dissolve the 
present parliament, you advised him to tell 
his subjects, that he was careful not to 
assume any of those powers, which the con- 
stitution had placed in other hands, &c. 
Yet queen Anne, it seems, was justified in 
exerting her prerogative to stop a House of 
Commons, whose proceedings, compared 
with those of the assembly of which you 
are a most worthy member, were the per- 
fection of justice and reason. 

In what a labyrinth of nonsense does a 
man involve himself who labours to main- 
tain falsehood by argument! How much 



ed to every man, that is committed or detained 
in prison, or otherwise restrained by the com- 
mand of the king, the privy council, or any 
other, he praying the same.' 

^ The diminutive stature of Mr "Welbore Ellis, 
afterwards lord Mendip, hence in another place 
called, by our author, little nianttikin Ellis, 
has been already noticed in the note, p. 235. 
The term Grildrig preserves the same idea, this 
being the name bestowed on Gulliver by the 
gigantic inhabitants of Brobdignag.— Edit. 



272 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



better would it become the dignity of the 
House of Commons to speak plainly to the 
people, and tell us at once, that their will 
Tmist be obeyed, not becatise it is lawful and 
reasonable, but because it is their will. 
Their constituents would have a better 
opinion of their candour, and, I promise 
you, not a worse opinion of their integrity. 
PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLIX. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. ^ 

My Lord, 22 June, 1771. 

The profound respect I bear to 
the gracious prince, who governs this 
country with no less honour to himself than 
satisfaction to his subjects, and who restores 
you to your rank under his standard, will 
save you from a multitude of reproaches. 
The attention I should have paid to your 
failings is involuntarily attracted to the 
hand that rewards therh ; and though I am 
not so partial to the royal judgment, as to 
affirm, that the favour of a king can remove 
mountains of infamy, it serves to lessen at 
least, for undoubtedly it divides, the bur- 
then. While I remember how much is 
due to his sacred character, I cannot, with 
any decent appearance of propriety, call 
you the meanest and the basest fellow in 
the kingdom. I protest, my Lord, I do 
not think you so. You will have a danger- 
ous rival, in that kind of fame to which you 
have hitherto so happily directed your 
ambition, as long as there is one man 



^ The author, in Private Note, No. 35, speak- 
ing of this letter, says, ' I am strangely partial 
to the inclosed. It is finished with the utmost 
care. If I find myself mistaken in my judgment 
of this paper, I positively will never write again.' 
The reader will doubtless give the writer full 
credit for the correctness of his opinion in the 
present instance. — Edit. 

'■^ The duke was lately appointed Lord Privy 
Seal. — Author. He succeeded lord Suffolk, 
who had just taken possession of the post of 
the northern department, upon the death of the 
earl of Halifax. — Edit. 

'^ He refers to lord Mansfield's call of the 
House upon the subject of the opinion of the 
judges, in consequence of the verdict of thejury 



living, who thinks you worthy of his confi- 
dence, and fit to be trusted with any share 
in his government. I confess you have 
great intrinsic merit ; but take care you do 
not value it too highly. Consider how- 
much of it would have been lost to the 
world, if the king had not graciously 
affixed his stamp, and given it currency 
among his subjects. If it be true that a 
virtuous man, struggling with adversity, be 
a scene worthy of the gods, the glorious 
contention between you and the best of 
princes, deserves a circle, equally attentive 
and respectable. I think I already see 
other gods rising from the earth to be- 
hold it. 

But this language is too mild for the 
occasion. The king is determined that our 
abilities shall not be lost to society. The 
perpetration and description of new crimes 
will find employment for us both. My 
Lord, if the persons who have been loud- 
est in their professions of patriotism, had 
done their duty to the public with the same 
zeal and perseverance that I did, I will not 
assert that government would have re- 
covered its dignity, but at least our gracious 
sovereign must have spared his subjects 
this last insult,2 which, if there be any 
feeling left among us, they will resent 
more than even the real injuries they re- 
ceived from every measure of your Grace's 
administration. In vain would he have 
looked round him for another character so 
consummate as yours. Lord Mansfield 
shrinks from his principles ; ^ — his ideas of 
government perhaps go farther than your 



upon Woodfall's trial — which embraced the 
question whether juries were judges of the fact 
alone, or of the law conjunctively. An import- 
ant motion was expected, but his Lordship, as 
our author states it, shrunk from the principles 
he had advanced, and merely informed the House 
that he had left a paper with their clerk, contain- 
ing the unanimous judgment of the Court of 
King's Bench upon the verdict in question, and 
the doctrine it necessarily embraced ; and that 
their Lordships were welcome to copies of it if 
they chose. 

See the whole detailed together, with lord Cam- 
den's counter-paper, in editor's note, p. 117. See 
also Miscellaneous Letters, No. LXXXIL — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



273 



own, but his heart disgraces the theory of 
his understanding.— Charles Fox is yet in 
blossom ; and as for Mr Wedderburne, 
there is something about him which even 
treachery cannot trust. For the present, 
therefore, the best of princes must have 
contented himself with lord Sandwich. — You 
would Jong since have received your final 
dismission and reward ; and I, my Lord, 
who do not esteem you the more for the 
high office you possess, would willingly 
have followed you to your retirement. 
There is surely something singularly 
benevolent in the character of our sove- 
reign. From the moment he ascended the 
throne, there is no crime, of which human 
nature is capable (and I call upon the Re- 
corder 1 to witness it), that has not appeared 
venial in his sight. ^ With any other prince, 
the shameful desertion of him, in the midst 
of that distress, which you alone had cre- 
ated, — in the very crisis of danger, when he 
fancied he saw the throne already sur- 
rounded by men of virtue and abilities, 
— would have outweighed the memory of 
your former services. But his Majesty is 
full of justice, and understands the doctrine 
of compensations. He lemembers with 
gratitude how soon you had accommodated 
your morals to the necessities of his serv- 
ice ; — how cheerfully you had abandoned 
the engagements of private friendship, and 
renounced the most solemn professions to 
the public. The sacrifice of lord Chatham 
was not lost upon him. Even the cowardice 
and perfidy of deserting him may have 
done you no disservice in his esteem. The 
instance was painful, but the principle 
might please. 

You did not neglect the magistrate, 
while you flattered the pian. The expul- 



* The late chief justice Eyre was, at this time, 
recorder of London. — Edit. 

^ The author here more particularly alludes to 
the pardon of M'Quirk and the Kennedys. 
See Letter VIII., and note, p. 149.— Edit. 

3 See pages 238, 239. — Edit. 

4 These points have all been noticed before— 
they relate to Mine's patent place ; Inglewood 
Forest, &^c. in Cumberland, granted to sir James 
Lowther by the crown, although it had been in 
possession of the duke of Portland's family for 



sion of Mr Wilkes, predetermined in the 
cabinet ; — the power of depriving the sub- 
ject of his birthright, attributed to a resolu- 
tion of one branch of the legislature ; — the 
constitution impudently invaded by the 
House of Commons ; — the right of defend- 
ing it treacherously renounced by the House 
of Lords : ^ — These are the strokes, my 
Lord, which, in the present reign, recom- 
mend to office, and constitute a minister. 
They would have determined your sove- 
reign's judgment, if they had made no 
impression upon his heart. We need not 
look for any other species of merit to 
account for his taking the earliest opportu- 
nity to recall you to his councils. Yet you 
have other merit in abundance. — Mr Hine, 
— the duke of Portland, — and Mr Yorke. — 
Breach of trust, robbery, and murder.^ 
You would think it a compliment to your 
gallantry, if I added rape to the catalogue ; 
— but the style of your amours secures you 
from resistance. I know how well these 
several charges have been defended. In 
the first instance, the breach of trust is 
supposed to have been its own reward. Mr 
Bradshaw affirms upon his honour, (and so 
may the gift of smiling never depart from 
him !) that you reserved no part of Mr 
Hine's purchase -money for your own use, 
but that every shilling of it was scrupul- 
ously paid to governor Burgoyne. — Make 
haste, my Lord, — another patent, applied 
in time, may keep the Oaks ^ in the 
family.— If not, Birnham Wood, I fear, 
must come to the maccaronl.^ 

The duke of Portland was in life your 
earliest friend. In defence of his property 
he had nothing to plead, but equity against 
sir James Lowther, and prescription against 
the crown. ^ You felt for >our friend ; but 



seventy years ; — and the suicide of Charles 
Yorke, the lord chancellor, who cut his throat 
from political chagrin, immediately after his ap- 
pointment. — Edit. 

5 A superb villa of col. Burgoyne, about this 
time advertised for sale. 

6 The person alluded to is the father of the 
present Mr Christie, who was the auctioneer 
employed to sell the estate. — Edit. 

7 Sir James Lowther was son-in-law to lord Bute 
by the marriage of one of his daughters. — Edit. 

18 



274 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the law must take its course. Posterity- 
will scarce believe that lord Bute's son-in- 
law had barely interest enough at the Trea- 
sury to get his grant completed before the 
general election. i 

Enough has been said of that detestable 
transaction, which ended in the death of 
Mr Yorke. — I cannot speak of it without 
horror and compassion. To excuse your- 
self, you publicly impeach your accom- 
plice, and to his mind perhaps the accusa- 
tion may be flattery. But in murder you 
are both principals. It was once a question 
of emulation, and if the event had not dis- 
appointed the immediate schemes of the 
closet, it might still have been a hopeful 
subject of jest and merriment between you. 

This letter, my Lord, is only a preface to 
my future correspondence. The remainder 
of the summer shall be dedicated to your 
amusement, I niean now and then to 
relieve the severity of your morning studies, 
and to prepare you for the business of the 
day. Without pretending to more than 
Mr Bradshaw's sincerity, you may rely 
upon my attachment, as long as you are in 
office. 

Will your Grace forgive me , if I venture 
to express some anxiety for a man, whom I 
know you do not love? My lord Wey- 
mouth has cowardice to plead, and a de- 
sertion of a later date than your own. You 
know the privy seal was intended for him ; 
and if you consider the dignity of the post 
he deserted, you will hardly think it decent 
to quarter him on Mr Rigby. Yet he must 
have bread, my Lord ; — or rather he must 

^ It will appear by a subsequent letter, that 
the duke's precipitation proved fatal to the 
grant. It looks like the hurry and confusion of 
a young highwayman, who takes a few shillings, 
but leaves the purse and watch behind him. — 
And yet the duke was an old offender ! See 
Letter LXVII. 

^ Lord Weymouth, upon deserting the minis- 
try, was succeeded in the foreign department by 
the earl of Rochford. The former nobleman re- 
signed Dec. ip, 1770, and the duke of Grafton 
on the precedmg 28th of January. Lord W — 's 
attachment to the bottle furnishes the ground 
for the imagery with which the letter concludes. 
— Edit. 

3 By an intercepted letter from the secretary 
■of the Treasury it appeared, that the friends of 



have wine. 3 If you deny him the cup, 
there will be no keeping him within the 
pale of the ministry. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER L. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 9 July, 1771. 

The influence of your Grace's for- 
tunes till seems to preside over the Treasury. 
— The genius of Mr Bradshaw inspires Mr 
Robinson.3 How remarkable it is (and I 
speak of it not as matter of reproach, but 
as something peculiar to your character), 
that you have never yet formed a friend- 
ship which has not been fatal to the object 
of it, nor adopted a cause to which, one 
way or other, you have not done mischief. 
Your attachment is infamy while it lasts, 
and whichever way it turns, leaves ruin 
and disgrace behind it. The deluded girl, 
who yields to such a profligate, even while 
he is constant, forfeits lier reputation as 
well as her innocence, and finds herself 
abandoned at last to misery and shame. 

Thus it happened with the best of 

princes. Poor Dingley too ! ^ — I protest I 
hardly know which of them we ought most 
to lament ; — the unhappy man who sinks 
under the sense of his dishonour, or him 
who survives it. Characters, so finished, 
are placed beyond the reach of panegyric. 
Death has fixed his seal upon Dingley, and 
you, my Lord, have set your mark upon 
the other. 

The only letter I ever addressed to the 

govertunent were to be very active in support- 
ing the ministerial nomination of sheriffs. — Au- 
thor. 

Robinson was now Treasury secretary, and 
filled the same post of confidential agent to lord 
North, that Bradshaw had before filled to the 
duke of Grafton. — Edit, 

4 Dingley was now just dead : and our author 
insinuates that he died of a broken heart in con- 
sequence of having been so contemptuously 
treated at the preceding election for Middlesex ; 
in which, as already observed, p. 151, he had 
offered himself a candidate at the request of the 
duke of Grafton, but could not obtain a nomina- 
tion from any one freeholder, and was afraid even 
to nominate himself. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



275 



king, waz so unkindly received, that I be- 
lieve I shall never presume to trouble his 
Majesty, in that way, again. But my zeal 
for his service is superior to neglect, and 
like Mr Wilkes's patriotism, thrives by 
persecution. Yet his Majesty is much ad- 
dicted to useful reading, and, if I am not 
ill-informed, has honoured the Public 
Advertiser with particular attention. I 
have endeavoured, therefore, and not with- 
out success (as perhaps you may remem- 
ber), to furnish it with such interesting 
and edifying intelligence, as probably would 
not reach him through any other channel. 
The services you have done the nation, — 
your integrity in office, and signal fidelity 
to your approved good master, have been 
faithfully recorded.' Nor have his own 
virtues been entirely neglected. These 
letters, my Lord, are read in other countries 
ana in other languages ; and I think I may 
afiirm without vanity, that the gracious 
character of the best of princes is by this 
time not only perfectly known to liis sub- 
jects, but tolerably well understood by the 
rest of Europe. In this respect alone, I 
have the advantage of Mr Whitehead.^ 
His plan, I think, is too narrow. He 
seems to manufacture his verses for the 



sole use of the hero, who is supposed to be 
the subject of them, and, that his meaning 
may not be exported in foreign bottoms, 
sets all translation at defiance. 

Your Grace's re-appointment to a seat in 
the cabinet was announced to the public 
by the ominous return of lord Bute to this 
country.^ When that noxious planet ap- 
proaches England, he never fails to bring 
plague and pestilence along with him. 
The king already feels the malignant effect 
of your influence over his councils. Your 
former administration made Mr Wilkes an 
alderman of London, and representative of 
Middlesex. Your next appearance in office 
is marked with his election to the shrievalty. 
In whatever measure you are concerned, 
you are not only disappointed of success, 
but always contrive to make the govern- 
ment of the best of princes contemptible in 
his own eyes, and ridiculous to the whole 
world. Making all due allowance for the 
effect of the minister's declared interposi- 
tion, Mr Robinson's activity, ^ and Mr 
Home's new zeal in support of administra- 
tion,^ we still want the genius of the duke 



^ Poet-laureat of the day. — Edit. 

^ From the continent, over a part of which he 
had been for some time travelhng. — Edit. 

3 Junius was charged by the writers of the 
day, as well as by a niore recent opponent, with 
having ' debased his pretensions to greatness by 
engaging unsuccessfully iti city politics.'' He, 1 
however, does not appear to have been the only I 
unsuccessful politician who had plunged into the 
mire of metropolitan politics, as the following 
letter from that celebrated character, Jack 
Robinson, will evince. It was written during the 
election of sheriff's of London, and is that alluded 
to in note 3, p. 274. 

' I\Ir Robinson presents his compliments to I\lr 
Smith. Mr Harley meets his ward publicly to- 
day, to support aldermen Plumbe and Kirkman. 
The friends of government will be very active, 
and it is earnestly desired that you will exert 
yourself to the utmost of your power to support 
those aldermen. It is thought it will be very 
advantageous to push the poll to-day with as 
many friends as possible, therefore it is desired 
that you will pursue that conduct. Mr Harley 
will be early in the city to-day, and to be heard 
of at his counting-house in Bridge-yard, Buck- 
lersbury, and if you, or such person as you in- 



trust in this matter, could_ see him to consult 
theveon, it might be beneficial to the cause. 
'Tuesday morning, 25th June, 1771, six o'clock. 
'To Benj. Smith, Esq.' 

' J. Robinson.' 

I'his letter, intended for Mr Benjamin Smith, 
the partner of Mr Alderman Nash, of Cannon- 
street, was, through the mistake of the messen- 
ger, delivered to Mr Smith of Budge-row, who 
published it, together with an affidavit as to its 
verity, which had such an effect on the election, 
that ISIr Bull, who at the time was fourth on the 
poll, was ultimately returned as one of the 
sheriffs of London, in conjunction wit'n Mr 
Wilkes, another of the candidates for that im- 
portant office. — Edit. 

^ Home had long zealously fought on the side 
of the staunchest Whigs, and v/as an active 
member of the society for the support of the 
Bill of Rights which had just discharged Wilkes's 
debts. Alderman Oliver, who had also been as 
zealous an advocate on the same side, and had 
suffered himself to be committed with the lord 
mayor to the Tower, in support of his principles, 
for some reason or other became at this time 
jealous of the popularity of Wilkes, affected to 
rival him, and refused to serve in the office of 
sheriff, if Wilkes were allowed to be his colleague. 
Home joined with Townshend, and the society 
for the support of the Bill of Rights became di- 
vided into two grand parties. 



2/6 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



of Grafton to account for committing the ' 
whole interest of goveirnment in the city, to 
the conduct of Mr Harley. I will not bear 
hard upon your faithful friend and emissary 
Mr Touchet, for I know the difficulties of 
his situation, and that a few lottery tickets 
are of use to his economy. There is a pro- 
verb concerning persons in the predicament 
of this gentleman, which however cannot 
be strictly applied to him. They commence 
dupes, and finish kttaves. Now, Mr Touch- 
et's character is uniform. I am convinced 
that his sentiments never depended upon 
his circumstances, and that, in the most 
prosperous state of his fortune, he was 
always the very man he is at present. — But 
was there no other person of rank and con- 
sequence in the city, whom government 
could confide in, but a notorious Jacobite ? 
Did you imagine that the whole body of 
the dissenters, 1 that the whole Whig in- 
terest of London would attend at the 
levee, and submit to the directions of a no- 
torious Jacobite ? Was there no Whig 
magistrate in the city, to whom the serv- 
ants of George the Third could intrust the 
management of a business, so very interest- 
ing to their master as the election of 
sheriffs? Is there no room at St James's 
but for Scotchmen and Jacobites ? My 
Lord, I do not mean to question the sin- 
cerity of Mr Harley's attachment to his 
Majesty's government. Since the com- 
mencement of the present reign, I have 
seen still greater contradictions reconciled. 
The principles of these worthy Jacobites 
are not so absurd as they have been repre- 
sented. Their ideas of divine right are not 
so much annexed to the person or family, 
as to the political character of the sove- 
reign. Had there ever been an honest 
man among the Stuarts, his Majesty's 
present friends would have been Whigs 



Wilkes united with Alderman Bull in pro- 
posing himself for the shrievalty, and in the con- 
test that ensued between them with Oliver, 
Kirkman, andPlumbe, obtained a large majority 
both for himself and his colleague, leaving 
Oliver, though supported by all the efforts of 
Home, the lowest on the poll. 

It was in consequence of the conduct thus pur- 



upon principle. But the conversion of the 
best of princes has removed their scruples. 
They have forgiven him the sins of his 
Hanoverian ancestors, and acknowledge 
the hand of Providence in the descent of 
the crown upon the head of a true Stuart. 
In you, my Lord, they also behold with a 
kind of predilection, which borders upon 
loyalty, the natural representative of that 
illustrious family. The mode of your de- 
scent from Charles the Second is only a bar 
to your pretensions to the crown, and no 
way interrupts the regularity of your suc- 
cession to all the virtues of the Stuarts. 

The unforttmate success of the reverend 
Mr Home's endeavours, in support of the 
ministerial nomination of sheriffs, will, I 
fear, obstruct his preferment. Permit me 
to recommend him to your Grace's protec- 
tion. You will find him copiously gifted 
with those qualities of the heart, which 
usually direct you in the choice of your 
friendships. He too was Mr Wilkes's friend, 
and as incapable as you are of the liberal 
resentment of a gentleman. No, my Lord, j 
— it was the solitary, vindictive mahce of a 
monk, brooding over the infirmities of his 
friend, until he thought they quickened 
into public life ; and feasting with a ran- 
corous rapture, upon the sordid catalogue 
of his distresses. 2 Now, let him go back to 
his cloister. The church is a proper retreat 
for him. In his principles he is already a 
bishop. 

The mention of this man has moved me 
from my natural moderation. Let me 
return to your Grace. You are the pillow, 
upon which I am determined to rest all my 
resentments. > What idea can the best of 
sovereigns form to himself of his own 
government ? — In what repute can he con- 
ceive that he stands with his people, when 
he sees, beyond the possibihty of a doubt, 
that, whatever be the office, the suspicion of 



sued by Home, and which was fatal to the 
popular cause, that Junius chose to represent 
him as bribed by the ministry. — Edit. 

^ The family of the Harleys were originally 
dissenters, and. the allusion is to this fact. — Edit. 

^ See editor's note to Letter LH., p. 279. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



277 



his favour is fatal to the candidate, and 
that, when the party he wishes well to has 
the fairest prospect of success, if his royal 
inclination should unfortunately be dis- 
covered, it drops like an acid, and turns 
the election. This event, among others, 
may perhaps contribute to open his ]Ma- 
jesty's eyes to his real honour and interest. 
In spite of all your Grace's ingenuity, he 
may at last perceive the inconvenience of 
selecting, with such a curious felicity, every 
villain in the nation to fill the various 
departments of his government. Yet I 
should be sorry to confine him in the choice 
either of his footmen or his friends,- 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER LI. 



FROM THE REVEREND MR HORNE TO 
JUNIUS. 

Sir, 13 Jiily^ T-77'^- 

F.-4RCE, Comedy, and Tragedy, — 
Wilkes, Foote, and Juiiius,'^ united, at 
the same time, against one poor parson, are 
fearful odds. The two former are only 
labouring in their vocation, and may 
equally plead in excuse, that their aim is a 
livelihood. I admit the plea for the second ; 
his is an honest caUing, and my clothes 
were lawful game ; but I cannot so readily 
approve Mr Wilkes, or commend him for 
making patriotism a trade, and a fraudu- 
lent trade. But what shall I say to Junius ? 
the grave, the solemn, the didactic ! ridi- 
cule, indeed, has been ridiculously called 
the test of truth ; but surely to confess that 
you lose your ?iatiiral moderation when 
mention is made of the man, does not 
promise much truth or justice when you 
speak of him yourself. 

You charge me with ' a new zeal in sup- 



^ Foote, availing himself of the growing un- 
popularity of Mr Home at the present moment, 
had ventured to caricature him on the stage. 
While therefore ]Mr Home pretends to tremble 
beneath the comic efforts of Foote and the t?-agic 
efforts of Junius, he still wishes the world to re- 
gard Wilkes's opposition to him as a mtx&/arce. 
—Edit. 



port of administration,' and with 'en- 
deavours in support- of the ministerial 
nomination of sheriffs.' The reputation 
which your talents have deservedly gained 
to the signature of Junius, draws from me 
a reply, which I disdained to give to the 
anonymous lies of IMr Wilkes. You make 
frequent use of the word gentleinari ; I 
only call myself a man, and desire no other 
distinction : if you are either, you are bound 
to make good your charges or to confess 
that you have done me a hasty injustice 
upon no authority. 

I put the matter fairly to issue. — I say, 
that so far from any new ' zeal in support 
of administration,' I am possessed with the 
utmost abhorrence of their measures : and 
that I have ever shown myself, and am still 
ready, in any rational manner, to lay down 
all I have — my life, in opposition to those 
measures. I say, that I have not, and 
never have had, any communication or con- 
nexion of any kind, directly or indirectly, 
with any courtier or ministerial man, or 
any of their adherents ; that I never have 
received, or solicited, or expected, or de- 
sired, or do now hope for, any reward of 
any sort, from any party or set of men in 
administration or opposition ; I say, that I 
never used any ' endeavours in support of 
the ministerial nomination of sheriffs. ' That 
I did not solicit any one liveryman for his 
vote for any one of the candidates ; nor 
employ any other person to solicit : and 
that I did not write one single line or word 
in favour of Messrs Plumbe and Kirkman,^ 
whom I understand to have been supported 
by the ministry. 

You are bound to refute what I here ad- 
vance, or to lose your credit for veracity : 
You must produce facts ; surmise and gen- 
eral abuse, in however elegant language, 
ought not to pass for proofs. You have 



^ Plumbe and Kirkman were the real govern- 
ment candidates for the shrievalty. Oliver 
stood alone. Yet Junius, availing himself of 
this last gentleman's opposition to Wilkes, was 
shrewdly desirous of impressing on the world an 
idea that they had all been supported by govern- 
ment, with a view of throwing out Wilkes and 
his avowed colleague Bull.— Edit. 



278 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



every advantage, and I have every dis- 
advantage,; you are unknown, I give my 
name : all parties, both in and out of ad- 
ministration, have their reasons (which I 
shall relate hereafter) for uniting in their 
wishes against me : and the popular pre- 
judice is as strongly in your favour, as it is 
violent against the parson.i 

Singular as my present situation is, it is 
neither painful, nor was it unforeseen. He 
is not fit for public business who does not 
even at his entrance prepare his mind for 
such an event. Health, fortune, tranquil- 
lity, and private connexions I have sacri- 
ficed upon the altar of the public ; and the 
only return I receive, because I will not 
concur to dupe and mislead a senseless 



^ This paragraph Mr Home was accused of 
borrowing from Mr Hugh Kelly, author of False 
Delicacy, and several other dramatic pieces, as 
will appear from the following letter addressed to 
that gentleman : — 

For the Public Advertiser. 

TO THK REV. MR HORNE. 

Sir, July ■20th, 1771. 

Happening to be at a distance from 
London, your letter to Junius did not fall into 
my hands till yesterday, when I confess I read it 
with equal astonishment and indignation ; and 
though it may be inconsistent with the generosity 
of an Englishman to strike the falleti, there is 
something so peculiarly unmanly in your conduct, 
that it is impossible to let you escape without 
some rnemormidwns of your judgment when the 
case is, and when the case is not your own. 

Do you remember, Sir, Friday, April 30, 1771, 
when you harangued the freeholders of Middle- 
sex for three tedious hours at the assembly-room 
at Mile End ; when you urged random accusa- 
tions yourself against others for their supposed 
connexion with government ; when you particu- 
larly attacked Mr Kelly as the immediate cham- 
pion of administration, and affirmed with great 
pathos that he was employed at the soldier's 
trial at Guildford to vindicate the wanton effu- 
sion of innocent blood. 

I have no connexion with Mr Kelly, Sir, nor 
do I by any means profess myself of his political 
faith : But if fame says true, he has been no 
apostate to his principles ; has betrayed no 
friendship ; and 1 introduce him solely here, 
that the world may see how conformable the 
tenor of Mr Home's conduct is to the candour 
of his professions. The following. Sir, is your 
speech relative to the Guildford affair : 

' It is necessary to give you an account of 
Maclean's trial ; because the judge forbad Us 
being taken down by any one except it was go- 
vernment — It has never been published — A very 



multitude, is barely, that they have not yet 
torn me in pieces. That this has been the 
only return, is my pride ; and a source of 
more real satisfaction than honours or 
prosperity. I can practise before I am old, 
the lessons I leai-ned in my youth ; nor 
shall I ever forget the words of my ancient 
monitor, 2 

' 'Tis the last key-stone 
That makes the arch : the rest that there were 

put, 
Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut 
Then stands it a triumphal mark ! then men 
Observe the strength, the height, the why and 

when 
It was erected ; and still walking under, 
Meet some new matter to look up and wonder I ' 
JOHN HORNE. 



false account of this trial has indeed been pub- 
lished by Mr Kelly, who was/a/^ and brought 
down to Guildford for inaX purpose, and who had 
lodgings taken for him there, and who was fa- 
miliarly conversant with a gentleman, whose 
name I shall not mention now, lest it should seem 
to proceed from resentment in me, for an account 
I have to settle with him next week : However, 
one circumstance I ought to tell you ; This gen- 
tleman was foreman of the grand jury.' 

Mr Kelly, in the address prefixed to his play, 
which you and other advocates for the freedom 
of the press so basely drove from the theatre, 
after saying some civil things relative to the 
character which he had heard of your disposition, 
and which your perfidy to that true friend of the 
constitution, Mr Wilkes, has clearly proved you 
never merited, thus expresses himself : 

' But though Mr Kelly readily makes this con- 
cession in favour of Mr Home's private charac- 
ter, he must observe that the constitution of this 
country, for the purity of which Mr Home is so 
strenuous an advocate, does not allow the mere 
belief oi any man to be positive evidence ; nor 
compliment his simple conjecture with the force 
of a. pact — For this reason Mr Home should be 
extremely cautious how he asserts any thing to 
the prejudice of another's reputation : Hearsay 
authority is not enough for this purpose ; he 
should know of his own knowledge what he as- 
serts upon his own word ; and be certain in his 
proof ^hero. he is peremptory in his accusation.'' 

Honestly now, Mr Home, had you not this 
paragraph either in your head, or your heart, at 
the time you were writing the following passage 
to Junius ? 

' You are bound to refute,' &c. 

WHIPCORD. 

To this letter Mr Home did not return any 
answer. — Edit. 

^ B. Jonson, of whose writings Mr Home 
Tooke was remarkably fond. The Sad Shepherd 
of that author is called his favourite poem in the 
' Diversions of Purley.' The present quotation 
is from his Underwoods : vide an epistle to sir 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



279 



LETTER LIL 

TO THE REVEREND MR HORNE. 

Sir, 24 July, jjji. 

I CANNOT descend to an alterca- 
tion with you in the newspapers. But since 
I have attacked your character, and you 
complain of injustice, I think you have 
some right to an explanation. You defy 
me to prove, that you ever solicited a vote, 
or wrote a word in support of the ministerial 
aldermen. Sir, I did never suspect you of 
such gross folly. It would have been im- 
possible for Mr Home to have solicited 
votes, and very difficult to have written for 
the newspapers in defence of that cause, 
without being detected and brought to 
shame. Neither do 1 pretend to any in- 
telligence concerning you, or to know more 
of your conduct, than you yourself have 
thought proper to communicate to the pub- 
lic. It is from your own letters I conclude 
that you have sold yourself to the minis- 
try : 1 or, if that charge be too severe, and 
supposing it possible to be deceived by ap- 
pearances so very strongly against you, 
what are your friends to say in your de- 
fence? Must they not confess that, to 
gratify your personal hatred of ^-Ir Wilkes, 
you sacrificed, as far as depended upon 
your interest and abilities, the cause of the 
country? I can make allowance for the 
violence of the passions, and if ever I 

Edward Sackvile, now earl of Dorset. Folio 
1692, p. 553. — Edit. 

The letters written by Mr Home in the 
dispute with Mr Wilkes. See the subsequent 
note as well as one appended to Private Letter, 
No. 35. — Edit. 

^ The facts here alluded to were as follow : 
— The late Mr Tooke, then Mr Home, while 
travelling on the continent was introduced to Mr 
Wilkes, at that time resident in Paris, which led 
to a subsequent intimacy, and apparently warm 
friendship. Mr Home, on leaving that gay 
metropolis, left behind him, in the care of Mr 
Wilkes, several suits of clothes of the most 
fashionable Parisian manufacture, being ill 
adapted to the clerical profession, as well as ill 
calculated to please the taste or suit the manners 
of the people of this country. In a political 
quarrel which occurred between these gentlemen, 



should be convinced that you had no mo- 
tive but to destroy Wilkes, I shall then be 
ready to do justice to your charactei, and 
to declare to the world, that I despise you 
somewhat less than I do at present. — But 
as a pubhc man, I must for ever condemn 
you. You cannot but know, — nay, you 
dare not pretend to be ignorant, that the 
highest gratification of which the most de- 
testable * * * in this nation is capable, 
would have been the defeat of Wilkes. I 
know that vian much better than any of 
you. Nature intended him only for a 
good-humoured fool. A systematical edu- 
cation, with long practice, has made him a 
consummate hypocrite. Yet this man, to 
say nothing of his worthy ministers, you 
have most assiduously laboured to gratify. 
To exclude Wilkes, it was not necessary 
you should soUcit votes for his opponents. 
We incline the balance as effectually by 
lessening the weight in one scale, as by in- 
creasing it in the other. 

The mode of your attack upon Wilkes 
(though I am far from thinking meanly of 
your abilities) convinces me, that you either 
want judgment extremely, or that you are 
blinded by your resentment. You ought 
to have foreseen, that the charges you 
urged against Wilkes could never do him 
any mischief. After all, when we expected 
discoveries highly interesting to the com- 
munity, what a pitiful detail did it end in ! 
— Some old clothes — a Welch pony, — a 
French footman, and a hamper of claret. 2 



shortly previous to the date of this letter, and 
which was the subject of a long and acrimonious 
altercation in the Public Advertiser, Mr Home 
accused Mr Wilkes with having, in the midst of 
his distress, pawned the clothes entrusted to his 
custody; with commissioning ISIr H.'s brother- 
in-law to purchase a pony which he never paid 
for ; with drinking claret while detained in the 
King's Bench prison ; with endeavouring to 
make his brother chamberlain of London ; and 
with retaining in his service six domestics, three 
of whom were French. As these, with several 
other charges, were detailed to the public by Mr 
Home in thirteen or fourteen very long letters, 
the editor will not heie transcribe them, but 
content himself with inserting several detached 
parts of Mr Wilkes's defence against these 
accusations, as they contain some curious facts, 
and are illustrative of the subject more particu- 



28o 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Indeed, Mr Home, the public should and 
will forgive him his claret and his footmen, 

larly adverted to in the text by the author : 
For the Public Advertiser. 

TO THE REV. MR HORNE. 

Sir, Prince's Court, Saturday, May i8. 

YoMX first letter of May 14, told me that 
you 'blamed my public conduct,' and 'would 
not open any account with me on the score of 
private character.' A third letter is this day 
addressed to me. Not a word hitherto ' of my 
public conduct,' but many false and malignant 
attacks about Mr Wildman, your brother-in-law, 
who formerly kept the Bedford Head in South- 
ampton Street, Covent Garden, and your old' 
clothes. The public will impute the impertinence 
of such a dispute to its author, and pardon my 
calling their attention for a few moments to 
scenes of so trifling a nature, because it is in jus- 
tification of an innocent man. 

When you left Paris in May 1767, you desired 
me to take care of your old clothes, for you 
meant to return in a few months, and they could 
be of no use to you in England. 'J'he morning 
of your departure you sent me the following 
letter. 

Dear Sir, 
According to your permission I leave with you 

I Suit of scarlet and gold IpiQ^u 

I Suit of white and silver j 

I Suit of blue and silver camblet. 

I Suit of flowered silk. 

I Suit of black silk. 
And I Black velvet surtout. 
If you have any fellow-feeling you cannot but 
be kind to them ; since they too as well as your- 
self are outlawed in England ; and on the same 
account — their superior worth. 

I am, 

Dear Sir, 

Your very affectionate, 
humble Ser\-ant, 
JOHN HORNE. 
Paris, May 25, 1767. 
This letter I returned to you at the King's 
Bench, and at the bottom of it the following 
memorandum in my own hand-writing, 'Nov. 21, 
1767, sent to Mr Panchaud's in the Rue St 
Sauveur.' I left Paris Nov. 22, 1767, and there- 
fore thought it proper the day before to send 
your clothes where I was sure they would be 
perfectly safe, to Mr Panchaud's, the great 
English banker's. They remained in my house. 
Rue des Saints Peres, only from May till the 
November following, nor was any demand, or 
request, made to me about them by Mr Wild- 
man, or any one else. You are forced to own 
' I have received a letter within the last three 
months from Mr Panchaud, informing me that 
they [the clothes) have lo7ig been in his posses- 
sion.' Examine the banker's books. You will 
find the date is Nov. 21, 1767. You say, 'for 
my own part I never made the least inquiry after 
my clothes.' I suppose for the plainest reason 
in the world. You knew where they were, and 



and even the ambition of making his brother 
chamberlain of London, as long as he 



that they could be no part of a clergyman's 
dress in England, but that you were sure of so 
rich a wardrobe on your next tour to France or 
Italy, as Paris would probably be your route. 
This is all I know of the vestimenta pretiosa of 
Eutrapelus. I hope, Sir. the putting them on 
will not have the same effect on you as they 
formerly had on his acquaintance. 

Cum pulcris tunicis sumet nova consilia et spes; 
Dorrniet in lucem ; scorto postponet honestum 
Officium ; 7iummos alienos pascet. 

Your charge about your brother-in-law, Mr 
Wildman, is equally unjust. When I was in 
England in October, 1766, I lodged at Mr Wild- 
man's house in Argyle Buildings, on his own 
pressing invitation. I had long known him, and 
for several years belonged to a club, which met 
once a week at the Bedford Head. Mr Wild- 
man desired to be considered at this time as the 
warm partisan of Mr Wilkes. He begged that 
he might be useful as far as he could to me and 
my friends. I asked him to buy a little Welch 
horse for a lady in France, to whom I was de- 
sirous of paying a compliment. I fixed the 
price, and insisted on paying him at that very 
time, which I did. About a year afterwards 
Mr Wildman fulfilled my commission, purchased 
me a Welch pony, and sent it to Calais. This 
was the single transaction of my own with your 
brother-in-law at that time. I gave him two or 
three trifling commissions from Monsieur Satnt 
Foy for arrack, &c., which were to be forwarded 
to Paris. I believe they were sent, but they 
never passed through my hands, nor do I know 
whether Mr Wildman has yet been paid for 
those trifles, the whole of which amounted only, 
as he told me, to about thirty pounds. 

Your endeavours to create a coolness between 
Mr Cotes and me are clearly seen through, and 
will prove ineffectual. You made the same at- 
tempt on the late Mr Sterne and me with the 
same success. In your letter to me at Paris, 
dated Jan. 3, 1766, you say, ' I passed a week 
with Sterne at Lyons, and am to meet him again 
at Sienna in the summer — Forgive my question, 
and do not answer it, if it is impertinent. Is 
there any cause of coldness between you and 
Sterne ; he speaks very handsomely of you, 
when it is absolutely necessary to speak at all ; 
but not with that zvarmth and enthusiasm, that 
I expect from every one that knows you. Do 
not let me cause a coldness between you if there 
is none. I am sensible my question is at least 
imprudent, and my jealousy blameable.' 

In your second letter you say, ' the nature of 
our intercourse, for it cannot be called a connex- 
ion,^ and afterwards, ' in my return from Italy to 
England in the year 1767, I saw reasons suf- 
ficient never more to trust you with a single 
litie ; ' and in your third letter you pretend that 
you had even in 1767 'infinite contempt for the 
very name of Mr Wilkes.' However, on the 
17th of last May, you write me another letter on 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



281 



stands forth against a ministry and parlia- to enslave the country, and as long as he is 
ment, who are doing every thing they can a thorn in the king's side. You will not 



my going to Fulham, while my house here was 
repairing, to recommend six tradesmen to me, to 
tell me how mosi sincerely you were mine, &:c. 
You add, ' I could not forbear showing my 
frieyidship to you by letting you know your 
friends.' You will find, Sir, that it requires 
more memory as well as wit than falls to one 
man's share to support a long chain of falsehoods. 
You are lost and bewildered in the intricacies of 
error. The path of truth you would find more 
easy and honourable. 

You assert, ' I found that all the private letters 
of your friends were regularly pasted in a book, 
and read over indiscriminately, not only to your 
friends and acquaintance, but to every visitor.' 
I glor3% Sir, in Raving four large volumes of 
manuscript letters, many of them written by the 
first men of this age. I esteem them my most 
valuable possession. Why is the pleasure of an 
elegant and instructive epistle to perish with the 
hour it Is received? To the care and attention 
of Cicero's friends in preserving that great 
Roman's letters we owe the best history of 
Rome for a most interesting period of about 
forty years. You mistake when you talk of all 
the private letters of yo7ir friends. My care 
has extended only to letters of particular friends 
on particular occasions, or to letters of business, 
taste, or literature. The originals of such I have 
preserved ; never any copies of my own letters, 
unless when I wrote to a secretary of state, to a 
Talbot, a Martin, or a Home. When you add, 
' that they are read over indiscriminately, not only 
to your friends and acquaintance, but to every 
visitor,' you knowingly advance a falsehood. So 
much of your time has passed with me, that 
you are sensible very few of my friends have 
ever heard of the volumes I mentioned. The 
preservation of a letter Is surely a compliment 
to the writer. But although I approve the pre- 
servation in general, I highly disapprove the 
publication of any private letters. However, 
there are cases which justly call them forth to 
light. Mr Onslow's first letter was after great 
importunity from you printed by me, to justify 
what you had said at Epsom. The second you 
printed, without my consent, from a copy I suf- 
fered you to take. 

Th.e pa?nj>hlet you mention has not yet been 
piihlished. I have now before me the copy, cor- 
rected with your own hand, which you gave me 
at Paris. The following passage I am sure 3'ou 
will read at this time with particular satisfaction, 
and I reserve It ioxyow pour la boujie bouche. 

' We have seen, by Mr Wilkes's treatment, 
that no man who is not, and who has not always 
been, absolutely perfect himself, must dare to 
arraign the measures of a minister. 

' It is not sufficient that he pay an inviolable 
regard to the laws ; that he be a man of the 
strictest and most unimpeached honour ; that he 
be endowed with superior abilities and qualifica- 
tions ; that he be blessed with a benevolent, 
generous, noble, free soul ; that he be inflexible. 



incorruptible, and brave ; that he prefer infinitely 
the public welfare to his own interest, peace, and 
safety ; that his life be ever in his hand, ready 
to be paid down chearfully for the liberty of his 
country ; and that he be dauntless and unwea- 
ried in her service. — All this avails him nothing. 

' If It can be proved (though by the base 
means of treachery and tfieft] that in some un- 
guarded, wanton hour he has uttered an inde- 
cent word, or penned a loose expression Away 

with such a fellow from the earth ; it is not 

fit that he should live.' 

* * « « « * 

After a variety of accusations of /rzWz'^ crimes 
3'ou affect to cover the whole with the veil of 
hypocrisy . You say, ' I have mentioned these 
circumstances not as any charges against you, 
though no doubt they will operate as such.' Had 
your turn. Sir, been to divinity, in the subtleties 
of the schools you would have outshone Thomas 
Aquinas or Duns Scotus, in treachery even the 
priest Malagrida. 

You have In your late letters to me accused 
me of almost every criine, of which the most 
diabolical heart Is capable. When you wrote the 
letters to sir William Beauchamp Proctor, I had 
only 07ie crijne, of which I own I have not re- 
pented. ' 3Ir Wilkes's criuie is well known to 
have been his opposing and exposing the mea- 
sures of lord Bute. 

' The two Humes, Johnson, IMurphy, Ralph, 
Smollett, Shebbeare, &c. &c., all authors pen- 
sioned, or promised, had been let loose on himi 
In vain. The lord steward of his Majesty's 
household (who has therefore continued In that 
post through every revolution of ministry), and 
the treasurer to the Princess Dowager of Wales 
(who together with that office has a pension for 
himself and a reversion for his son!, had separ- 
ately endeavoured to commit a murder on his 
body, with as little success as others had at- 
teinpted his reputation : For they found him 
tam Marte quavi Mercicrio. 

' The intended assassination of him by Forbes 
and Du7i had miscarried. 

' The secretaries of state had seized his papers, 
and confined his person to close imprisonment. 
They had trifled with and eluded the Habeas 
Corpus. But still he rose superior to thejti all, 
and baffled alofie the insatiable 77ialice of all 
his persecutors ; for though they had in a man- 
ner ruined his private fortunes, his public cha- 
racter rejnained entire. They had spilt his 
blood indeed ; but they had not taken his life, 
and with it still were left 

The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy 
flame. 

It remained then to make one general attack 
upon him at once of every power of the state, 
each in Its separate capacity. The reverend name 
of Majesty itself was misapplied to this business. 
The House of Lords, the House of Commons, 
and the Court of King's Bench, through the little 



282 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



suspect me of setting up Wilkes for a per- 
fect character. The question to the pubKc, 
is, where shall we find a man, who, witli 
purer principles, will go the lengths and 
run the hazards that he has done ? the sea- 
son calls for such a man, and he ought 
to be supported. What would have been 
the triumph' of that odious hypocrite and 
his minions, if Wilkes had been defeated ! 
It was not your fault, reverend Sir, that he 
did not enjoy it completely. — But now I 

agency of Carrington, Kidgell, Curry, Webb, 
Faden, Sandwich, made one general assault.' 
<t * * « * « 

As you mention a promise you had obtained 
of being one of the chaplains to his Majesty, I 
shall conclude my present extracts with the fol- 
lowing passage, which will show how peculiarly 
fitted you are to be a domestic chaplain to our 
prese7it Sovereig?i. 

' Sheridan is at Blois, l>j/ order of his Majesty , 
and with a pension ; inventing a method to give 
the proper pronunciation of the English language 
to strangers, by means of sounds borrowed from 
their own. And he begins with the French. 

' I remember a few years ago when an attempt 
was made to prove lord Harborough an idiot. 
The counsel on both sides produced the same 
instance ; one of his wit, the other of his folly. 
His servants were puzzled once to unpack a large 
box, and his Lordship advised them to do with it 
as they did with oysters — put it in the fire, and 
it would gape. 

' This commission of Sheridan appears to me 
equally equivocal. And should a similar statttte 
be at a?iy time attempted against his Majesty, 
they who do not know him may be apt to sus- 
pect that he employed Sheridan in this manner, 
not so much for the sake of foreigners as of his 
own subjects ; and had permitted him to amuse 
himself abroad, to prevent his spoiling our pro- 
nunciation at home.' 

* * * * « * 

Am I to answer your impertinence about claret 
and French servants ? It shall be in one word. 
I have not purchased a bottle of claret since I 
left the King's Bench. Only two French serv- 
ants are in my family. An old woman, who has 
many years attended my daughter, and a foot- 
man, whom I esteem, as I have often told you, 
not as a Frenchman, but fo: his singidar fidelity 
to an Englishman during a course of several 
years, when I had the honour of being exiled, I 
have reason to believe that from hence originated 
your hatred to him. 

****** 

You assert, 'though I knew not the person of 
any one man in opposition, I quitted all my 
friends and connexions when I joined the public 
cause ; and with my eyes open, exchanged ease 
and fair fame for labour and reproach.' J desire 
to know what one friend, and what single con- 
nexion, you have quitted for the public cause. 



promise you, you have so little power to do 
mischief, that I much question whether the 
ministry will adhere to the promises they 
have made you. It will be in vain to say 
that / am a partisan of Mr Wilkes, or per- 
sonally jj/^^^r enemy. You will convince no 
man, for you do not believe it yourself. 
Yet, I confess, I am a little offended at the 
low rate, at which you seem to value my 
understanding. I beg, IVIr Home, you will 
hereafter believe that I measure the in- 



Yowx fair fame at Eton and Cambridge survived 
a very short time your abode at either of these 
places. Will you call an Italian gentleman now 
in town, your confident during your whole re- 
sidence at Getwa, to testif)'' the morality of your 
conduct in Italy ? — But I will not write the life of 
Jonathan Wild, nor of Orator Henley. 

You declare ' viinisterial and cojcrt favour I 
know I can never have, and for public favour I 
will never be a candidate : I chuse to tell them 
that, as far as it affects myself, / laugh at the dis- 
pleasure of both^ You well know that no 
minister will ever dare openly to give you any 
mark of court favour, at least in the church; 
many sec7'et favours you may, you do expect, 
and some I beheve actually receive. The. public 
you have abandoned in despair, after an assiduous 
courtship of near four years, but remember. Sir, 
when you say, ihdii you laugh at their displea- 
sure, the force of truth has extorted even from 
lord Mansfield the following declaration : ' the 
people are almost always in the right ; the great 
may sometimes be in the wrong, but the body of 
the people are always in the right.' 
****** 

In yowr first letter you declare * it is necessary 
to give a short history of the comjneucejnent, 
progress, and conclusion of the intercourse be- 
tween us.' In your secojid you say the nature 
of our Intercourse (for it cannot be called a con- 
nexion) will best appear from the situation of 
each of us at its commencement.' Your situatio7i 
shall be explained by yourself from the words of 
the first letter you ever wrote to me. 

' You are entering into a correspondence with 
a parso7i, and I am a little apprehensive lest that 
title should disgust you : But give me leave to 
assure you I am not ordained a hypocrite. 

' It is true, I have suffered the infectious hand 
of a bishop to be waved over me ; whose impo- 
sition, like the sop given to Judas, is only a 
signal for the devil to enter. It is true that 

usually at that touch fugiuntpudor,verumque, 

fidesque. In quorum subeunt locum fraudcs, 
dolique, insidiaeque, &c. &:c. ; but I hope I have 
escaped the contagion : And if I have not, if you 
should at any time discover the black spot 
under the tongue, assist me kindly to conquer 
the prejudices of education and profession.' 
I am. Sir, &c. 

JOHN WILKES.— Edit., 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



283 



tegrity of men, by their conduct, not by I 
their professions. Such tales may entertain i 
2\Ir Oliver, or your grandmother, but trust 
me, they are thrown away upon Junius. j 
You say you are a fnan. Was it gener- 
ous, was it manly, repeatedly to introduce 
into a newspaper the name of a young ' 
lady,i with whom you must heretofore have 
lived on terms of politeness and good hu- j 
mour? — but I have done with you. In 7?iy j 
opinion, your credit is irrecoverably ruined. 
Mr Towiishend, I think, is nearly in the j 
same predicament. — Poor Oliver has been 
shamefully duped by you. You have made 
him sacrifice all the honour he golr by his 
imprisonment. — As for Mr Sawbridge,"^ 
whose character I really respect, I am as- 
tonished he does not see through your 
duplicity. Never was so base a design so 
poorly conducted. — This letter, you see, is 
not intended for the pubhc, but if you think 
it will do you any service, you are at hberty 
to pubUsh it. 

JUNIUS.3 



LETTER LIII. 



FROM THE REVEREND MR HORNE TO 
JUNIUS. 

Sir, 31 July, 1771. 

You have disappointed me. When 
I told you that surmise and general abuse, 
in however elegant language, ought not to 
pass for proofs, I evidently hinted at the 
reply which I expected : but you have 
dropped your usual elegance, and seem 
willing to try what will be the effect of sur- 
mise and general abuse in veiy coarse lan- 
guage. Your answer to my letter (which I 
hope was cool and temperate and modest) 
has convinced me that my idea of a man is 

^ Home had taken liberties with the name of 
Miss Wilkes in his public letters in some of the 
newspapers — and liberties which no miscon- 
duct of hers had entitled him to take. — Edit. 

^ Townshend and Sawbridge had been per- 
suaded by Home to unite in supporting Oliver 
against Wilkes ; and both,_ in consequence 
hereof, forfeited much of their popularity from 
this moment, and were accused of gross want of 
understanding, and by some of tergiversation. — 
Edit. 



much superior to yours of a. gentle7?ia?i. Of 
your former letters I have always said 7na- 
teriem supej-abat opus : I do not think so of 
the present ; the principles are more detest- 
able than the expressions are mean and 
illiberal. I am contented that all those who 
adopt the one should for ever load me with 
the other. 

I appeal to the common sense of the 
public, to which I have ever directed my- 
self : I believe they have it ; though I am 
sometimes half inclined to suspect that IMr 
Wilkes has formed a truer judgment of 
mankind than I have. However, of this I 
am sure, that there is nothing else upon 
which to place a steady reliance. Trick, 
and low cunning, and addressing their pre- 
judices and passions, may be the fittest 
means to carry a particular point ; but if 
they have not common sense, there is no 
prospect of gaining for them any real per- 
manent good. The same passions which 
have been artfully used by an honest man 
for their advantage, may be more artfully 
employed by a dishonest man for their 
destruction. I desire them to apply their 
common sense to this letter of Junius, not 
for my sake, but their own ; it concerns 
them most nearly, for the principles it 
contains lead to disgrace and ruin, and are 
inconsistent with every notion of civil 
society. 

The charges w^hich Junius has brought 
against me are made ridiculous by his own 
inconsistency and self-contradiction. He 
charges me positively with ' a new zeal in 
support of administration ; ' and with ' en- 
deavours in support of the ministerial 
nomination of sheriffs.' And he assigns two 
inconsistent motives for my conduct : 
either that I have ' sold myself to the minis- 
try ; ' or am instigated ' by the sohtary, 



3 This letter was transmitted privately by the 
printer to Mr Home, by JuNiUS's request. Mr 
Home returned it to the printer, with directions 
to publish it. — Author. 

The reason for such private transmission was 
that it was not JuNius's wish to increase those 
divisions which Home and Oliver had so unwisely 
provoked in the Bill of Rights Society, by an 
open contest between himself and any one of its 
members. — Edit. 



284 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



vindictive malice of a monk : ' either that I 
am influenced by a sordid desire of gain ; 
or am hurried on by ' personal hatred and 
blinded by resentment.' In his letter 
to the duke of Grafton he supposes me 
actuated by both : in his letter to me he at 
first doubts which of the two, whether 
interest or revenge, is my motive : however, 
at last he determines for the former, and 

^ In one of the letters addressed to Mr Wilkes 
by Mr Home, during the altercation spoken of 
in the preceding notes, he, the latter, thus ex- 
plains himself with respect to his support of the 
former, as well as to the motives which induced 
him to withdraw it. In this extract he also gives 
us a general outline of his political opinions, 
from which he does not appear to have materially- 
varied to the day of his death. ' I was your 
friend only for the sake of the public cause : that 
reason does in certain matters remain ; as far as 
it remains, so far I am still your friend ; and 
therefore, I said in my first letter, "the public 
should know how far they ought, and how far 
they ojight not, to support you." To bring to 
punishment the great delinquents who have cor- 
rupted the parliament and the seats of justice; 
who have encouraged, pardoned, and rewarded 
murder ; to heal the breaches made in the con- 
stitution, and by salutary provisions to prevent 
them for the future ; to replace once more, not 
the adininistrntiou and execution, for which 
they are very unfit, but the checks of government 
recilly in the hands of the governed ; 

' For these purposes, if it were possible to 
suppose that the great enemy of mankind could 
be rendered instrumental to their happiness, so 
far the devil himself should be supported by the 
people. For a human instrument they should 
go farther, he should not only be supported, but 
thanked and rewarded for the good which per- 
haps he did not intend, as an encouragement to 
others to follow his example. But if the foul 
fiend, having gained their support, should endea- 
vour to delude the weaker part, and intice them 
to an idolatrous worship of himself, by persuad- 
ing them that what he suggested was their voice, 
and their voice the voice of God : if he should 
attempt to obstruct every thing that leads to 
their security and happiness, and to promote 
every wickedness that tends only to his own 
emolument : if when — the cause — the cause — 
reverberates on their ears, he should divert them 
from the original sound, and direct them towards 
the opposite unfaithful echo : if confusion should 
be all his aim, and mischief his sole enjoyment, 
would not he act the part of a faithful monitor to 
the people, who should save them from their 
snares, by reminding them of the true object of 
their constitutional worship, expressed in those 
words of holy writ (for to me it is so) Rex, Lex 
loq7iens ; Lex, Rex nmtus. This is — the cause 
— the cause — To make this union indissoluble is 
the only cause I acknowledge. As far as the 



again positively asserts that ' the ministry 
have made me promises ; ' yet he produces 
no instance of corruption, nor pretends to 
have any intelligence of a ministerial con- 
nexion : he mentions no cause of personal 
hatred to Mr Wilkes, nor any 7-eason 
for my resentment, or revenge ; nor has 
Mr Wilkes himself ever hinted any, though 
repeatedly pressed. 1 When Junius is 



support of Mr Wilkes tends to this point I am 
as warm as the warmest : But all the lines of 
your projects are drawn towards a different cen- 
ter — yourself; and if with a good intention I 
have been diligent to gain your powers which 
may be perverted to mischief, I am bound to be 
doubly diligent to prevent their being so em- 
ployed. 

' The diligence I have used for two years past, 
and the success I have had in defeating all your 
shameful schemes, is the true cause of the dissen- 
sion between us. I have never had any private 
pique or quarrel with you. It was your policy 
in paragraphs and anonymous letters to pretend 
it ; but you cannot mention any private cause of 
pique or quarrel. 

* To prevent the mischief of division to a popu- 
lar opposition, those who saw both your bad in- 
tentions and your actions were silent ; and 
whilst they defeated all your projects, they were 
cautious to conceal your defeats. They studied 
so much the more to satisfy your voracious 
prodigality, and thought, as I should have done 
if a minister, that if feeding it would keep you 
from mischief, a few thousands would be well 
employed by the public for that purpose. But 
I can never, merely for the sake of strengthen- 
ing opposition, join in those actions which would 
prevent all the good effects to be hoped for from 
opposition, and for the sake of which alone any 
opposition to government can be justifiable. 
Such a practice would very well suit those who 
wish a change of ministers. For my part I wish 
no such thing; bad as the present are, I am 
afraid the next will not be better, though I am 
sure they cannot be worse. I care not under 
whose administration good comes. But the 
people must owe it to themselves, nor ought 
they to receive the restoration of their rights as 
a favour from any set of men, minister, or king. 
The moment they accept it as a grant, a favour, 
an act of grace, the people have not the prospect 
of a right left. They will from that time become 
hke the mere possessors of an estate without a 
title, and of which they may be dispossessed at 
pleasure. If the people are not powerful enough 
to make a bad administration or a bad king do 
them justice, they will not often have a good 
one. Would to God the time were come, which 
lam afraid is very distant beyond the period of 
my life, when an honest man could not be in 
opposition ; I declare I should rejoice to find the 
patronage of a minister in the smallest degree 
my honour and interest. I never have pretended 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



285 



called upon to justify his accusation, he 
answers, ' he cannot descend to an alter- 
cation with me in the newspapers.' Ju- 
nius, who exists only in the newspapers, 
who acknowledges ' he has attacked my 
character ' there, and ' thinks I have some 
right to an explaftation ; ' yet this JUNIUS 
' cannot descend to an altercation in the 
newspapers ! ' and because he cannot de- 
scend to an altercation with me in the 
newspapers, he sends a letter of abuse by 
the printer, which he finishes with telling 
me — ' I am at Hberty to publish it." This, to 
be sure, is a' most excellent method to avoid 
an altercation in the newspapers ! 

TYiQ proofs of his positive charges are as 
extraordinary, ' He does not pretend to 
any intelligence concerning me, or to know 
more of my conduct than I myself have 
thought proper to communicate to the pub- 
he' He does not suspect me of such gross 
folly as to have solicited votes, or to have 
written anonymously in the newspapers ; 



to any more than to prefer the former to the 
latter. But it is not upon me alone that you 
have poured forth your abuse, but upon every 
man of honour who has deserved well of the 
public ; and if you were permitted to proceed 
without interruption, there would shortly not be 
found one honest man who would not shudder to 
deserve well of the people. 

' The true reason of our dissension being made 
public, is, that you could not get on a step with- 
out it ; and you trust that the popularity of your 
name, and your diligence in paragraphing the 
papers, will outweigh with the people the most 
essential services of others ; and that you- shall 
get rid of all control by takmg away from those 
who mean well, the confidence of the people. 
If you can once get them affronted by the pub- 
lic, whom they have faithfully served, you flat- 
ter yourself that disgust will make them retire 
from a scene where such a man as you are, 
covered with infamy like yours, has the disposal 
of honour and disgrace, and the characters of 
honest men at his mercy. 

John Horne.' 

To the second paragraph of this extract Mr 
Wilkes makes the following reply : 

' I thank you for the entertainment of 
your sixth letter. The idea of an unfaithful 
echo, although not quite new and original, is 
perfectly amusing ; but, like Bayes, you love to 
elevate and surprise. I wish you would give the 
list of echoes of this kind, which you have heard 
in your travels through France and Italy. I 
have read of only one such in a neighbouring 
kingdom. If you ask. How do you do ? it an- 



because it is impossible to do either of 
these without being detected and brought 
to shame. Junius says this I who yet 
imagines that he has himself written two 
years under that signature (and more 
under others) without being detected ! — his 
warmest admirers will not hereafter add, 
without being brought to shame. But 
though he did never suspect me of such 
gross folly as to run the hazard of being 
detected and brought to shame by anon- 
ymous writing, he insists that I have been 
guilty of a much grosser folly of incurring 
the certainty of shame and detection by 
writings signed with my name ! But this is 
a small flight for the towering Junius : ' He 
is FAR from thinking meanly of my abili- 
ties,' though he is ' convinced that I want 
judgment extremely," and can 'really re- 
spect Mr Sawbridge's character,' though he 
declares ^ him to be so poor a creature as 
not to be able to ' see through the basest 
design conducted in the poorest manner ! ' 



swers, Pretty well I thank you. The sound of 
your unfaithful echo can only be paralleled by 
Jack Home's silence with a stilly sound, in the 
tragedy of Douglas. 

The torrent rushing o'er its pebbly banks, 
Infuses silence with a stilly sound. 

I have heard of the babbling, the mimic, the 
shrill echo. The discovery of an unfaithful echo 
was reserved for Mr Horne. Really, Sir, I 
should have thought, notwithstanding all your 
rage, you might have suffered an echo to be 
faithful. I did not expect novelty, or variety, 
much less infidelity, from an echo.'— Edit. 

^ I beg leave to introduce Mr Horne to the 
character of the Double Dealer. I thought they 
had been better acquainted. — 'Another very 
wrong objection has been made by some, who 
have not taken leisure to distinguish the charac- 
ters. The hero of the play (meaning Alellefont) 
is a gull, and made a fool, and cheated. — Is 
every man a gull and a fool that is deceived ? — 
At that rate, I am afraid the two classes of men 
will be reduced to one, and the knaves themselves 
be at a loss to justifj-^ their title. But if an open, 
honest hearted man, who has an entire confid- 
ence in one, whom he takes to be his friend, 
and who (to confirm him in his opinion) in all 
appearance and upon several trials has been so ; 
if this man be deceived by the treachery of the 
other, must he of necessity commence fool im- 
mediately, only because the other has proved a 
villain ? ' — Yes, says parson Horne. No, says 
Congreve, and he, I think, is allowed to have 
known something of human nature. 



286 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



And this most base design is conducted in 
the poorest manner, by a man whom he 
does not suspect of gross folly, and of 
whose abilities he is far from thinking 
meanly ! 

Should we ask Junius to reconcile these 
contradictions, and explain this nonsense, 
the answer is ready ; ' he cannot descend 
to an altercation in the newspapers.' He 
feels no reluctance to attack the character 
of any man : the throne is not too high, 
nor the cottage too low : his mighty 
malice can grasp both extremes : he hints 
not his accusations as opinion, conjecture, 
or inference ; but delivers them as positive 
assertions. Do the accused complain of in- 
justice ? He acknowledges they have some 
sort of right to an explanation ; but if they 
ask for proofs and facts, he begs to be 
excused ; and though he is no where else to 
be encountered — ' he cannot descend to an 
altercation in the newspapers.' 

And this perhaps Junius may think ' the 
liberal resentme7it of a gentleman : ' this 
skulking assassination he may call courage. 
In all things as in this 1 hope we differ : 

' I thought that fortitude had been a mean 
'Twixt fear and rashness ; not a lust obscene, 
Or appetite of offending ; but a skill 
And nice discernment between good and ill. 
Her ends are honesty and public good, 
And without these she is not understood.' ^ 

Of two things however he has conde- 
scended to give proof. He very properly 
produces a young lady to prove that I am 
not a man : and a good old woma7i, my 
grandmother, to prove Mr Oliver a fool. 
Poor old soul ! she read her Bible far other- 
wise than Junius ! she often found there 
that the sins of the fathers had been visited 
on the children ; and therefore was cau- 
tious that herself and her immediate de- 
scendants should leave no reproach on her 
posterity : and they left none : how little 
could she foresee this reverse of Junius, 
who visits my political sins upon my grand- 



^ This quotation is also from the epistle to 
Sackvile. Mr Home here made some slight 
alterations : perhaps he quoted from memory. 
For B. Jonson's 

' Or science of a discerning good and ill,' 
he prints, 



viother / I do not charge this to the score 
of malice in him, it proceeded entirely from 
his propensity to blunder ; that whilst he 
was reproaching me for introducing in the 
most harmless manner the name of one 
female, he might himself, at the same 
instant, introduce two. 

I am represented alternately, as it suits 
JUNius's purpose, under the opposite cha- 
racters of a gloomy monk, and a man of 
politeness and good humour. I am called 
' a solitary monk, ' in order to confirm the 
notion given of me in Mr Wilkes's anon- 
ymous paragraphs, that I never laugh : and 
the terms oi politeness and good humour on 
which I am said to have lived heretofore 
with the young lady, are intended to con- 
firm other paragraphs of Mr Wilkes, in 
which he is supposed to have offended me 
by refusing his daughter. Ridiculous ! 
Yet I cannot deny but that Junius has 
proved me utimanly and ungenerous as 
clearly as he has shown me corrupt and 
vindictive : and I will tell him more ; I 
have paid the present ministry as many 
visits and compliments as ever I paid to the 
young lady, and shall all my life treat 
them with the same politeness and good 
humour. 

But Junius ' begs me to believe that he 
measures the integrity of men by their con- 
duct, not by their professions.' Surely this 
Junius must imagine his readers as void 
of understanding, as* he is of modesty ! 
Where shall we find the standard of his in- 
tegrity? By what are we to measure the 
conduct of this lurking assassin? — And he 
says this to me, whose conduct, wherever I 
could personally appear, has been as direct 
and open and public as my words ; I have 
not, like him, concealed myself in my 
chamber to shoot my arrows out of the 
window ; nor contented myself to view the 
battle from afar ; but publicly mixed in the 
engagement, and shared the danger. To 



A fid nice discermiient between, &c. 
For ' And where they want she is not understood,' 
And luithotit these, di.c. 
One of his alterations disturbs, however aston- 
ishing, the grammatical construction : a skill hz- 
tween^^-c^ and i7/is not English. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



287 



whom have I, hke him, refused my name 
upon complaint of injury ?i what printer 
have I desired to conceal me ? in the infi- 
nite variety of business in which I have 
been concerned, where it is not so easy to 
be faultless, which of my actions can he 
arraign ? to what danger has any man 
been exposed, which I have not faced? 
information, action, imprisonment, or 
death f what labour have I refused ? what 
expense have I dechned? what pleasure 
have I not renounced? — But Junius, to 
whom no conduct belongs, ' measures the 
integrity of men by their conduct, not by 
their professions ; ' himself all the while 
being nothing hut professions, and those too 
anonymous ! The political ignorance or 
wilful falsehood of this declaimer is ex- 
treme : his own for??ier letters justify both 
my conduct and those whom his last letter 
abuses : for the public measures, which Ju- 
nius has been all along defending, were 
ours, whom he attacks ; and the uniform 
opposer of those measures has been Mr 
Wilkes, whose bad actions and intentions 
he endeavours to screen. 

Let Junius now, if he pleases, change 
his abuse ; and quitting his loose hold of 
interest and revenge, accuse me of vanity, 
and call this defence boasting. I own I 
have a pride to see statues decreed and the 
highest honours conferred for measures and 
actions which all men have approved : 
whilst those who counselled and caused 
them are execrated and insulted. The 
darkness in which Junius thinks himself 
shrouded has not concealed him ; nor the 
artifice of only attacking under that signa- 
t2ire those he would pull down (whilst he 
reco7nme7ids by other zvays those he would 
have promoted) disguised from me whose 
partisan he is. When lord Chatham can 
forgive the awkward situation in which for 
the sake of the public he was designedly 
placed by the thanks to him from the city ; 2 
and when Wilkes's name ceases to be 



^ Alluding to sir Wm. Draper's call upon 
Junius for his name. See the conclusion of 
Letter XXIV.— Edit. 

^ See note 3^ p. 290. — Edit. 



necessary to lord Rockingham to keep up a 
clamour against the persons of the ministry, 
without obliging the different factions now 
in opposition to bind themselves before- 
hand to some certain points, and to stipu- 
late some precise advantages to the public ; 
then, and not till then, may those whom he 
now abuses expect the approbation of 
Junius. The approbation of the public 
for our faithful attention to their interest by 
endeavours for those stipulations, which 
have made us as obnoxious to the factions 
in opposition as to those in administration, 
is not perhaps to be expected till some 
years hence ; when the public will look 
back and see how shamefully they have 
been deluded ; and by what arts they were 
made to lose the golden opportunity of 
preventing what they will surely experience, 
— a change of ministers, without 2.material 
change of measures, and without any 
security for a tottering constitution. 

But what cares Junius for the security 
of the constitution ? He has now unfolded 
to us his diabolical principles. As a pub- 
lic man he must ever condemn any measure 
which may tend even accidentally to gratify 
the sovereign : and Mr Wilkes is to be sup- 
ported and assisted in all his attempts (no 
matter how ridiculous or mischievous his 
projects) as long as he continues to be a 
thorn in . the king s side ! — The cause of 
the country it seems, in the opinion of 
Junius, is merely to vex the king : and 
any rascal is to be supported in any roguery, 
provided he can only thereby plant a thorn 
in the king s side. — This is the very ex- 
tremity of faction, and the last degree of 
poHtical wickedness. Because lord Chat- 
ham has been ill-treated by the king, and 
: treacherously betrayed by the duke of 
I Grafton, the latter is to be ' the pillow on 
j which Junius will rest his resentment ! ' 
and the public are to oppose the measures 
I of government from mere motives of per- 
sonal enmity to the sovereign ! — These are 



the avowed principles of the man who in 
the same letter says, ' if ever he should be 
convinced that I had no motive but to de- 
stroy Wilkes, he shall then be ready to do 



288 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



justice to my character, and to declare to 
the world that he despises me somewhat 
less than he does at present ! ' Had I ever 
acted from personal affection or enmity to 
Mr Wilkes, I should justly be despised : 
but what does he deserve whose avowed 
motive is personal enmity to the sovereign? 
the contempt which I should otherwise feel 
for the absurdity and glaring inconsistency 
of Junius, is here swallowed up in my ab- 
horrence of his principle. The 7'i^^ki divine 
and sacredness of kings is to me a senseless 
jargon. It was thought a daring expression 
of Oliver Cromwell in the time of Charles 
the First, that if he found himself placed 
opposite to the king in battle, he would dis- 

^ Mr Home was charged with having stolen 
this idea from a note of Mr Wilkes, annexed to 
that passage in Clarendon, to which the writer 
here more particularly alludes. The letter is 
short, and, as it also explains a subsequent fact, 
it ought not to be omitted. 

FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

TO THE REV. JIR HORNE. 

Sir, -^ug- 6, 1771. 

You declare in your letter to Junius, 
that Mr Wilkes told the Rockingham adminis- 
tration, ' it cost me a year and an half to write 
down the last administration.' Unluckily for 
Mr Home the administration said to be wrote 
down by Mr Wilkes did not last 07ie year, and 
Mr Wilkes is certainly too well informed to have 
made so gross a mistake. Lord Bute was made 
first commissioner of the Treasury, May 29, 1762, 
and resigned April 8, 1763. The North Briton 
made its first appearance June 5, 1762. The 
paper war therefore did not last quite one year 
before the enemy abandoned the capital post he 
had seized. Mr Home, when he invents, should 
be careful not to give absurd fictions. I am ac- 
quainted both with Mr Wilkes and Mr Home. 
It is amusing to observe how the parson has, on 
a variety of occasions, purloined from the alder- 
man. Many of their former common friends 
have been amused with the instances. The late 
passage about Cromwell is curious. Mr Home 
saj's, ' it was thought a daring expression of 
Oliver Cromwell,' &c. Mr Wilkes has probably 
forgot the little anecdote ; but I breakfasted with 
him at the King's Bench with Mr Home, who 
copied in my presence the following note from 
Mr Wilkes's Clarendon, which I likewise pre- 
served. ' Cromwell ought to have declared, that 
he would rather chuse to single out the king, and 
discharge his pistol upon him, as the first author 
of the guilt of a civil war, and whose death then 
might probably extinguish it.' The whole pass- 
age of Clarendon is so curious, your readers will 
not be displeased to find it in your paper. 



charge his piece into his bosom as soon as 
into any other man's. I go farther : had I 
lived in those days, I would not have wait- 
ed for chance to give me an opportunity of 
doing my duty ; I would have sought him 
through, the ranks, and without the least 
personal enmity, have discharged my piece 
into his bosom rather than into any other 
man's.i The king whose actions justify 
rebelhon to his government, deserves death 
from the hand of every subject. And 
should such a time arrive, I shall be as free 
to act as to say. But till then, my attach- 
ment to the person and family of the sove- 
reign shall ever be found more zealous and 
sincere than' that of his flatterers. I would 



' Cromwell, though the greatest dissembler liv- 
ing, always made his hypocrisy of singular use 
and benefit to him, and never did anything, how 
ungracious or imprudent soever it seemed to be, 
but what was necessary to the design ; even his 
roughness and unpolishedness, which, in the 
beginning of the parliament, he affected contrary 
to the smoothness and complacency which his 
cousin, and bosom friend, Mr Hambden, prac- 
tised towards all men, was necessary ; and his 
first public declaration, in the beginning of the 
war, to his troop when it was first mustered, that 
he would not deceive or cozen them by the per- 
plexed and involved expressions in his commis- 
sion, to fight for king and parliament ; and 
therefore told them, that if the king chanced to 
be in the body of the enemy that he was to 
charge, he would as soon discharge his pistol 
upon him, as any other private person ; and if 
their conscience would not permit them to do the 
like, he advised them not to list themselves in his 
troop, or under his command, which was gener- 
ally looked upon as imprudent and malicious, 
and might, by the professions the parliament 
then made, have proved dangerous to him, yet 
served his turn, and severed from others, and 
united among themselves, all the furious and in- 
censed men against the government, whether 
ecclesiastical or civil, to look upon him as a man 
for their turn, upon whom they might depend, 
as one who would go through the work that he 
undertook.' 

The passage I have quoted from Mr Home's 
letter appears to me in flat contradiction to what 
he says at the end of the same letter, ' whoever 
or whatever is sovereign, demands the respect 
and support of the people.' Is it possible that 
the last paragraph could be written by the same 
person, who printed in all the papers that the 
king's smiling when the city remonstrance was 
presented, reminded him, that ' Nero fiddled, 
while Rome was burning? ' W. B. 

For an explanation, of the last quotation, see 
note, p. 232. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



offend the sovereign with as much reluct- 
ance as the parent ; but if the happiness 
and security of the whole family made it 
necessary, so far and no farther, I would 
offend him without remorse. 

But let us consider a httle whither these 
principles of JUNIUS would lead us. Should 
Mr Wilkes once more commission Mr 
Thomas Walpole to procure for him a pen- 
sion oi one thousand pounds upon the Irish 
establishment for thirty years ; he must be 
supported in the demand by the public — 
because it would mortify the king ! 

Should he wish to see Lord Rockingham 
and his friends once more in administration, 
unclogged by any stipulatio7ts for the people, 
that he might again enjoy a perision of one 
thousarid and fo7'ty founds a year, viz. 
from the first lord of the Treasury ;i^300, 
from the lords of the Treasury £^6o each, 
from the lords of trade £^^0 each,i &c., 
the public must give up their attention to 
points of national benefit, and assist Mr 
Wilkes in his attempt — because it would 
mortify the king ! 

Should he demand the government of 
Canada, or of Jamaica, or the embassy to 
Constanthtople ; and in case 9f refusal 
threaten to write them down, as he had 
before served another administration, in a 
year and a half ; he must be supported in 
his pretensions, and upheld in his insolence 
— because it would mortify the king ! 

Junius may chuse to suppose that these 
things cannot happen ! But that they have 
happened, notwithstanding Mr Wilkes's 
denial, I do aver. I maintain that Mr 
Wilkes did commission Mr Thomas Wal- 
pole to solicit for him a pension of one 
thousand pounds on the Irish establishment 
for thirty years ; with which, and a par- 
don, he declared he would be satisfied : 
and that, notwithstanding his letter to Mr 
Onslow, he did accept a clandestine, pre- 



^ The "Rockingham party had consented to 
unite with the Bedford administration on the ex- 
press stipulation of a reversal of the proceedings 
against Wilkes. They were not, however, able 
to obtain this stipulation at last ; and, as some 
indemnification to Wilkes for the promise they 
had made to him in this respect, they granted 



carious, and eleemosynary pension from the 
Rockingham administration ;2 which they 
paid in proportion to and out of their sal- 
aries ; and so entirely was it ministerial, 
that as any of them went out of the min- 
istry, their names were scratched out of the 
list, and they contributed no longer. I 
say, he did solicit the governments and the 
embassy, and threatened their refusal nearly 
in these words — ' It cost me a year and an 
half to write down the last administration, 
should I employ as much time upon you, 
very few of you would be in at the death.' 
When these threats did not prevail, he 
came over to England to embarrass them 
by his presence ; and when he found that 
lord Rockingham was something firmer 
and more manly than he expected, and 

refused to be bulhed into what he 

could not perform, Mr Wilkes declared that 
he could not leave England without money ; 
and the duke of Portland and lord Rock- 
ingham purchased his absence with one 
hundred pounds a piece ; with which he 
returned to Paris. And for the truth of 
what I here advance, I appeal to the duke 
of Portland, to lord Rockingham, to lord 
John Cavendish, to Mr Walpole, &c. — I 
appeal to the hand-writing of Mr Wilkes, 
which is still extant. 

Should Mr Wilkes afterwards (failing in 
this wholesale trade) chuse to dole out his 
popularity by the pound, and expose the 
city offices to sale to his brother, his attor- 
ney, &c., Junius will tell us, it is only an 
ambition that he has to make them cham- 
berlain, town-clej-k, &c., and he must not 
be opposed in thus robbing the ancient 

citizens of their birthright because any 

defeat of Mr Wilkes would gratify the 
king ! 

Should he, after consuming the whole of 
his own fortune and that of his Avife, and 
incurring a debt of twenty thousand pounds 
merely by his own private extravagance. 



him a pension out of their own salaries, upon 
the proportions stated above, with which, at 
their entreaty, he again returned to the conti- 
nent. — Edit. 

^ See the last note, which stales the pension 
referred to.— -Edit. 

19 



ego 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



without a single service or exertion all this 
time for the public, whilst his estate re- 
mained ; should he, at length, being un- 
done, commence patriot, have the good 
fortune to be illegally persecuted, and in 
consideration of that illegality be espoused 
by a few gentlemen of the purest public 
principles ; should his debts (though none 
of them v/ere contracted for the public) 
and all his other incumbrances be discharg- 
ed ; should he be offered ;!^6oo or ;!^iooo a 
year to make him independent for the 
future ; and should he, after all, instead of 
gratitude for these services, insolently for- 
bid his benefactors to bestow their own 
money upon any other object but hiraself.i 
and revile them for setting any bounds to 
their supplies ; Junius (who, any more 
than lord Chatham, never contributed one 
farthing to these enormous expenses) will 
tell them, that if they think of converting 
the supplies of Mr Wilkes's private ex- 
travagance to the support of public mea- 
sures they are as great fools as my 

grandmother ; and that Mr Wilkes ought 
to hold the strings of their purses— aij- long 
as he continues to be a thorn in the king s 
side ! 

Upon these principles I never have acted, 
and I never will act. In my opinion, it is 
less dishonourable to be the creature of a 
court than the tool of a faction. I will not 
be either. I understand the two great 
leaders of opposition to be lord Rocking- 
ham and lord Chatham ; under one of 
whose banneis all the opposing members of 
both Houses, who desire to get places, 
enlist. I can place no confidence in either 
of them, or in any others, unless they 
will now engage, whilst they are out, to 
grant certain essential advantages for the 
security of the public when they shall be in 
administration. These points they refuse 
to stipulate, because they are fearful lest 

^ The quarrel between Mr Wilkes and Mr 
Home originated in the mode of appropriating 
the contributions to the Bill of Rights Society, 
the funds of which were professedly subscribed 
for the purpose of paying the debts of the 
former.— -Edit. 

^ On the 22nd of March, 1770, at which forty- 



they should prevent any future overtures 
from the court. To force them to these 
stipulations has been the uniform endea- 
vour of Mr Sawbridge, ISIr Townshend, 
Mr Oliver, &c., and therefore they are 
abused by Junius. I know no reason but 
my zeal and industry in the same cause that 
should entitle me to the honour of being 
ranked by his abuse with persons of their 
fortune and station. It is a duty I owe to 
the memory of the late Mr Beckford to 
sa}^ that he had no other aim than this 
when he provided that sumptuous enter- 
tainment at the Mansion-house for the 
members of both Houses in opposition. 2 
At that time he drew up the heads of an 
engagement, which he gave to me with a 
request that I would couch it in terms so 
cautious and precise, as to leave no room 
for future quibble and evasion ; but to 
oblige them either to fulfil the intent of the 
obligation, or to sign their own infamy, 
and leave it on record ; and this engage- 
ment he was determmed to propose to 
them at the Mansion-house, that either by 
their refusal they might forfeit the confid- 
ence of the public, or by the engagement 
lay a foundation for confidence. When 
they were informed of the intention, lord 
Rockingham and his friends flatly refused 
any engagement ; and Mr Beckford as 
flatly swore, they should then — 'eat none 
of his broth ; ' and he was determined to 
put off- the entertainment : But Mr Beck- 
ford was prevailed upon by to indulge 

them in the ridiculous parade of a popular 
procession through the city, and to give 
them the foolish pleasure of an imaginary 
consequence, for the real benefit only of the 
cooks and purveyors. 

It was the same motive which dictated 
the thanks of the city to lord Chatham ; 
which were expressed to be given for his 
declaration in favour of short parliaments ; ^ 



five noblemen, besides a great number of mem- 
bers of parliament, and other persons of dis- 
tinction, were present. — Edit. 

3 The vote of thanks and answer were as fol- 
low : 

At a Common Council holden on the 14th of 
May, 1770, it was resolved, ' That the grateful 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



291 



in order thereby to fix. lord Chatham at 
least to that one constitutional remedy, 
without which all others can afford no 
security. The embarrassment no doubt 
was cruel. He had his choice, either to 
offend the Rockingham party, who de- 
clared y^rOTa/Zj/ against short parliaments, 
and with the assistance of whose numbers 
in both Houses he must expect again to be 
minister ; or to give up the confidence of 
the public, from whom finally all real con- 
sequence must proceed. Lord Chatham 
chose the latter : and I will venture to say, 
that, by his answer to those thanks, he has 
given up the people without gaining the 
friendship or cordial assistance of the 
Rockingham faction ; whose little politics 
are confined to the making of matches, 
and extending their family connexions, and 
who think they gain more by procuring 

thanks of this court be presented to the Right 
Hon. William earl of Chatham, for the zeal he 
has shown in support of those most valuable and 
sacred privileges, the right of election, and the 
right of petition ; and for his wishes and de- 
claration, that his endeavours shall hereafter be 
used that parliaments may be restored to their 
original purity, by shortening their duration, 
and introducing a more full and equal represent- 
ation ; an act which will render his name more 
honoured by posterity, than the memorable suc- 
cesses of the glorious war he conducted.' 

To this vote of thanks the earl of Chatham 
made the following reply to the committee 
deputed to present it to his lordship : 

' Gentlemen, 

' It is not easy for me to give expression 
to all I feel, on the extraordinary honour done 
to my public conduct by the City of London ; a 
body so highly respectable on every account, 
but above all, for their constant assertion of the 
birthrights of Englishmen, in every great crisis 
of the constitution. 

' In our present unhappy situation, my duty 
shall be, on all proper occasions, to add the 
zealous endeavours of an individual to those 
legal exertions of constitutional riglits, which, to 
their everlasting honour, the City of London has 
piade, in defence of freedom of election and free- 
dom of petition, and for obtaining eft"ectual re- 
paration to the electors of Great Britain. 

'As to the point among the declarations which 
I am understood to have made, of my wishes for 
the public, permit me to say there has been some 
misapprehension, for with all my deference to 
the sentiments of the Cit};-, I am bound to de- 
clare that I cannot recommend triennial parlia- 
ments as a remedy against that canker of the 
constitution, venality in elections ; ready to 



one additional vote to their party in the 
House of Commons, than by adding to 
their languid property and feeble character, 
the abilities of a Chatha7n, or the confid- 
ence of the public. 

Whatever may be the event of the pre- 
sent wretched state of politics in this 
country, the principles of Junius will suit 
no form of government. They are not to 
be tolerated under any constitution. Per- 
sonal enmity is a motive fit only for the 
devil. Whoever or whatever is sovereign, 
demands the respect and support of the 
people. The union is formed for their 
happiness, which cannot be had without 
mutual respect ; and he counsels malici- 
ously who would persuade either to a 
wanton breach of it. When it is banished 
by either party, and when every method 
has been tried in vain to restore it, there is 



submit my opinion to better judgment, if the 
wish for that measure shall become prevalent in 
the kingdom. Purity of parliament is the corner- 
stone in the common-wealth ; and as one obvious 
means towards this necessary end is to strengthen 
and extend the natural relation between the con- 
stituents and the elected, I have, in this view, 
publicly expressed my earnest wishes for a more 
full and equal representation, by the addition of 
one knight of the shire in a county, as a further 
balance to the mercenary boroughs. 

' I have thrown out this idea with the just 
diffidence of a private man, when he presumes to 
suggest any thing new on a high matter. Ani- 
mated by your approbation, I shall with better 
hope continue humbly to submit it to the public 
wisdom, as an object most deliberately to be 
weighed, accurately examined, and maturely 
digested. 

' Having many times, when in the service of 
the crown, and when retired from it, experienced, 
with gratitude, the favour of my fellow-citizens, 
I am now particularly fortunate, that, with their 
good liking, I can offer any thing towards up- 
holding this wisely-combined frame of mijced 
government against the decays of time, and the 
deviations incident to all human institutions '; 
and I shall esteem my life honoured indeed, if 
the City of London can vouchsafe to think that 
my endeavours have not been wanting to main- 
tain the national honour, to defend the colonies, 
and extend the commercial greatness of my 
country, as well as to preserve from violation the 
law of the land, and the essential rights of the 
constitution.' 

On the subject of triennial parliaments, lord 
Chatham appears subsequently to have changed 
his opinion, as will be seen by a reference to 
the editor's note to Letter XLIV., p. 264. — 
Edit. 



292 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



no remedy but a divorce ; but even then he 
must have a hard and a wicked heart 
indeed who punishes the greatest criminal 
merely for the sake of the punishment ; and 
who does not let fall a tear for every drop 
of blood that is shed in a public struggle, 
however just the quarrel. 

JOHN HORNE. 



LETTER LIV.i 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 13 Aug. 1771, 

I OUGHT to make an apology to 
the duke of Grafton, for suffering any part 
of my attention to be diverted from his 
Grace to Mr Home. I am not justified by 
the similarity of their dispositions. Private 
vices, however detestable, have not dignity 
sufficient to attract the censure of the press, 
unless they are united with the power of 
doing some signal mischief to the com- 
munity. — Mr Home's situation does not 
correspond with his intentions. — In my 
own opinion (which I know will be attri- 
buted to my usual vanity and presumption), 
his letter to me does not deserve an 
answer. But I understand that the public 
are not satisfied with my silence ; — that an 
answer is expected from me, and that if I 
persist in refusing to plead, it will be taken 
for conviction. I should be inconsistent 
with the principles I profess, if I declined 
an appeal to the good sense of the people. 
Or did not willingly submit myself to the 
judgment of my peers. 

If any coarse expressions have escaped 
me, I am ready to agree that they are unfit 
for Junius to make use of, but I see no 
reason to admit that they have been im- 
properly applied. 

Mr Home, it seems, is unable to compre- 
hend how an extreme want of conduct and 
discretion can consist with the abilities I 
have allowed him ; nor can he conceive 
that a very honest man, with a very good 

'■ Junius, in Private Letter, No. 37, makes 
the following observation : ' If Mr Home an- 



understanding, may be deceived by a knave. 
His knowledge of human nature must be 
limited indeed. Had he never mixed 
with the world, one would think that 
even his books might have taught him 
better. Did he hear lord Mansfield, when 
he defended his doctrine concerning libels? 
— Or when he stated the law in prosecu- 
tions for criminal conversation ? — Or when 
he delivered his reasons for calling the 
House of Lords together to receive a copy 
of his charge to the jury in Woodfall's 
trial ?2 — Had he been present upon any of 
these occasions, he would have seen how 
possible it is for a man of the first talents, 
to confound himself in absurdities, which 
would disgrace the hps of an idiot. Per- 
haps the example might have taught him 
not to value his own understanding so 
highly. Lord Littleton's integrity and 
judgment are unquestionable ; — yet he is 
known to admire that cunning Scotchman, 
and verily believes him an honest man. — I 
speak to facts with which all of us are con- 
versant.— I speak to men and to their experi- 
ence, and will not descend to answer the 
httle sneering sophistries of a collegian. — 
Distinguished talents are not necessarily 
connected with discretion. If there be any 
thing remarkable in the character of Mr 
Home, it is that extreme want of judgment 
should be united with his very moderate 
capacity. Yet I have not forgotten the 
acknowledgment I made him. He owes it 
to my bounty ; and though his letter has 
lowered him in my opinion, I scorn to re- 
tract the charitable donation. 

I said it would be very difficult for Mr 
Home to write directly in defence of a 
ministerial measure, and not be detected ; 
and even that difficulty I confined to his 
particular situation. He changes the terms 
of the proposition, and supposes me to as- 
sert, that it would be hnpossible for any man 
to write for the newspapers and not be dis- 
covered. 

He repeatedly affirms, or intimates at 



swers this letter handsomely and in point, he 
shall be my great Apollo.' — Edit. 
* See the charge, p. 117, note. — Edit, 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



293 



least, that he knows the author of these 
letters.— With what colour of truth then 
can he pretend that I am no where to be en- 
countered but in a newspaper f — I shall 
leave him to his suspicions. It is not 
necessary that I should confide in the 
honour or discretion of a man, who already 
seems to hate me with as much rancour, as 
if I had formerly been his friend. — But he 
asserts that he has traced me through a 
variety of signatures. To make the dis- 
covery of any importance to his purpose, 
he should have proved, either that the 
fictitious character of Junius has not been 
consistently supported, or that the author 
has maintained different principles under 
different signatures. — I cannot recall to my 
memory the numberless trifles I have 
written ; — but I rely upon the consciousness 
of my own integrity, and defy him to fix 
any colourable charge of inconsistency upon 
me. 

I am not bound to assign the secret 
motives of his apparent hatred of Mr 
Wilkes : nor does it follow that I may not 
judge fairly of his conduct, though it were 
true, that I had no co7iduct of my own. — 
Mr Home enlarges, with rapture, upon the 
importance of his services; — the dreadful 
battles which he might have been engaged 
in, and the dangers he has escaped. — In 
support of the formidable description, he 
quotes verses without mercy. The gentle- 
man deals in fiction, and naturally appeals 
to the evidence of the poets. — Taking him 
at his word, he cannot but admit the 
superiority of 'Mr Wilkes in this line of 
service. On one side we see nothing but 
imaginary distresses. On the other we see 
real prosecutions ; — real penalties ; — real 
imprisonment ;-— life repeatedly hazarded ; 
and, at one moment, almost the certainty 
of death. 1 Thanks are undoubtedly due to 
every man who does his duty in the engage- 
ment ; but it is the wounded soldier who 
deserves the reward. v 

I did not mean to deny that Mr Home 

^ For an explanation of the subjects here 
alluded to, see the editor's note to Letter XLVL, 
p. 267. — Edit. 



had been an active partisan. It would 
defeat my own purpose not to allow.hnn a 
degree of merit, which aggravates his guilt. 
The very charge 0/ contributing his zittnost 
efforts to support a mifiisterial measure, 
implies an acknowledgment of his former 
services. If he had not once been distin- 
guished by his apparent zeal in defence of 
the common cause, he could not now be 
distinguished by deserting it. — As for my- 
self, it is no longer a question whether I 
shall mix with the throfig,, and take a single 
share in the danger. Whenever Junius 
appears, he must encounter a host of 
enemies. But is there no honourable way 
to serve the public, without engaging in 
personal quarrels with insignificant indi- 
viduals, or submitting to the drudgery of 
canvassing votes for an election? Is there 
no merit in dedicating my life to the in- 
formation of my fellow-subjects ? — What 
public question have I declined, what villain 
have I spared ? — Is there no labour in the 
composition of these letters ? Mr Home, 
I fear, is partial to me, and measures the 
facility of my writings, by the fluency of his 
own. 

He talks to us, in high terms, of the 
gallant feats he would have performed, if he 
had lived in the last century. The unhappy 
Charles could hardly have escaped him. 
But living princes have a claim to his 
attachment and respect. Upon these terms, 
there is no danger in being a patriot. If he 
means any thing more than a pompous 
rhapsody, let us try how well his argument 
holds together. — I presume he is not yet so 
much a courtier as to affirm that the con- 
stitution has not been grossly and daringly 
violated under the present reign. He will 
not say, that the laws have not been shame- 
fully broken or perverted ; — that the rights 
of the subject have not been invaded, or 
that redress has not been repeatedly solicited 
and refused. — Grievances like these were 
the foundation of the rebellion in the last 
century, and, if I understand Mr Home, 
they would, at that period, have justified 
him to his own mind, in dehberately attack- 
ing the fife of his sovereign. I shall not 



294 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ask him to what political constitution this 
doctrine can be reconciled. But, at least, 
it is incumbent upon him to show, that the 
present king has better excuses than 
Charles the First, for the errors of his 
government. He ought to demonstrate to 
us that the constitution was better under- 
stood a hundred years ago than it is at pre- 
sent ; — that the legal rights of the subject 
and the limits of the prerogative were more 
accurately defined, and more clearly com- 
prehended. If propositions like these can- 
not be fairly maintained, I do not see how 
he can reconcile it to his conscience, not to 
act immediately with the same freedom with 
which he speaks. I reverence the character 
of Charles the First as little as Mr Home ; 
but I will not insult his misfortunes by a 
comparison that would degrade him. 

It is worth observing, by what gentle 
degrees, the furious persecuting zeal of Mr 
Home has softened into moderation. Men 
and measures were yesterday his object. 
What pains did he once take to bring that 
great state criminal MacQuirk to execu- 
tion ! — To-day he confines himself to 
measures only. — No penal example is to be 
left to the successors of the duke of Grafton. 
— To-morrow, I presume both men and 
measures will be forgiven. The flaming 
patriot, who so lately scorched us in the 
meridian, sinks temperately to the west, and 
is hardly felt as he descends. 

I comprehend the policy of endeavouring 
to communicate to Mr Oliver and Mr Saw- 
bridge a share in the reproaches, with which 
he supposes me to have loaded him. My 
memory fails me, if I have mentioned their 
names with disrespect ; — unless it be re- 
proachful to acknowledge a sincere respect 
for the character of Mr Sawbridge, and not 
to have questioned the innocence of Mr 
Oliver's intentions. >' 

It seems I am a partisan of the great 
leader of the opposition. If the charge had 
been a reproach, it should have been better 
supported. I did not intend to make 
public declaration of the respect I bear lord 
Chatham. I well knew what unworthy 
conclusions would be drawn from it. But 



I am called upon to dehver my opinion, 
and surely it is not in the little censure of 
Mr Home to deter me from doing signal 
justice to a man, who, I confess, has grown 
upon my esteem. ^ As for the common, 
sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of 
vulgar ambition, I question whether the 
applause of Junius would be of service to 
lord Chatham. My vote will hardly re- 
commend him to an increase of his pension, 
or to a seat in the cabinet. But if his am- 
bition be upon a level with his understand- 
ing ; — if he judges of what is truly honour- 
able for himself, with the same superior 
genius, which animates and directs him to 
eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, 
even the pen of Junius shall contribute to 
reward him. Recorded honours shall 
gather round his monument, and thicken 
over him. It is a solid fabric, and will sup- 
port the laurels that adorn it. — I am not 
conversant in the language of panegyric. — 
These praises are extorted from me ; but 
they will wear well, for they have been 
dearly earned. 

My detestation of the duke of Grafton is 
not founded upon his treachery to any in- 
dividual : though I am wilUng enough to 
suppose that, in public affairs, it would be 
impossible to desert or betray lord Chat- 
ham, without doing an essential injury to 
this country. My abhorrence of the duke 
arises from an intimate knowledge of his 
character, and from a thorough conviction 
that his baseness has been the cause of 
greater mischief to England, than even the 
unfortunate ambition of lord Bute. 

The shortening the duration of parlia- 
ments is a subject on which Mr Home 
cannot enlarge too warmly ; nor will I 
question his sincerity. If I did not profess 
the same sentiments, I should be shame- 
fully inconsistent with myself. It is un- 
necessary to bind lord Chatham by the 
written formality of an engagement. He 
has publicly declared himself a convert to 



■^ See the authors opinion of lord Chatham in 
the year 1767, Miscellaneous Letters, No. I. — 
Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



29s 



triennial parliaments ;i and though I have 
long been convinced that this is the only 
possible resource we have left to preserve 
the substantial freedom of the constitution, 
I do not think we have a right to determine 
against the integrity of lord Rockingham 
or his friends. Other measures may un- 
doubtedly be supported in argument, as 
better adapted to the disorder, or more 
hkely to be obtained. 

Mr Home is well assured, that 1 never 
was the champion of Mr Wilkes. But 
though I am not obliged to answer for the 
firmness of his future adherence to the 
principles he professes, I have no reason to 
presume that he will hereafter disgrace 
them. As for all those imaginary cases, 
which Mr Home so perpetually urges 
against me, I have one plain, honest an- 
swer to make to him. — Whenever Mr 
Wilkes shall be convicted of soliciting a 
pension, an embassy, or a government, he 
must depart from that situation, and re- 
nounce that character, which he assumes 
at present, and which, in 7ny opinion, en- 
title him to the support of the public. By 
the same act, and at the same moment, he 
will forfeit his power of mortifying the 
king ; and though he can never be a favour- 
ite at St James's, his baseness may admin- 
ister a solid satisfaction to the royal mind. 
The man I speak of, has not a heart to feel 
for the frailties of his fellow-creatures. It 
is their virtues that afflict, it is their vices 
that console him. 

I give every possible advantage to Mr 
Horne, when I take the facts he refers to 
for granted. That they are the produce of 
his invention, seems highly probable ; that 
they are exaggerated I have no doubt. At 
the worst, what do they amount to, but that 
Mr Wilkes, who never was thought of as a 
perfect pattern of morality, has not been at 
all times proof against the extremity of dis- 
tress ! 2 How shameful is it, in a man who 



_^ For lord Chatham's previous opinion of 
triennial parliaments, see editor's note to the pre- 
ceding Letter, p. 291 ; and for his declaration in 
favour of them, editor's note to Letter XLIV., 
p. 264. — Edit. 



has lived in friendship with him, to reproach 
him with failings, too naturally connected 
with despair ! Is no allowance to be made 
for banishment and ruin? Do6s a two 
years' imprisonment make no atonement 
for his crimes ? — The resentment of a priest 
is implacable. No sufferings can soften, 
no penitence can appease him; — Yet he 
himself, I think, upon his own system, has 
a multitude of political offences to atone 
for. I will not insist upon the nauseous 
detail, with which he so long disgusted the 
public. He seems to be ashamed of it. 
But what excuse will he make to the friends 
of the constitution for labouring to promote 
this consu7nmately bad man to a station of 
the highest national trust and importance ? 
Upon what honourable motives did he re- 
commend him to the livery of London for 
their representative ;--to the ward of Far- 
ringdon for their alderman ; — to the county 
of Middlesex for their -knight ? Will he 
atfirm that, at that time, he was ignorant 
of Mr Wilkes's solicitations to the min- 
istry? — That he should say so, is indeed 
very necessary for his own justification, 
but where will he find credulity to believe 
him ? 

In what school this gentleman learned 
his ethics I know not. His logic seems to 
have been studied under Mr Dyson. That 
miserable pamphleteer, by dividing the 
only precedent in point, and taking as 
much of it as suited his purpose, had re- 
duced his argument upon the Middlesex 
election to something like the shape of a 
syllogism. IMr Horne has conducted him- 
self with the same ingenuity and candour. 
I had affirmed that Mr Wilkes would pre- 
serve the public favour, ' as long as he 
stood forth against a ministry and parlia- 
ment who were doing every thing they 
could to enslave the country, and as long 
as he was a thorn in the king's side.' Yet 
from the exulting triumph of Mr Home's 
reply, one would think that I had rested 
my expectation, that Mr Wilkes would be 

^ For Mr Wilkes's defence of himself against 
the charges of Mr Horne, see the note, p. 279. 
— Edit."' 



296 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



supported by the public, upon the single 
condition of his mortifying the king. This 
may be logic at Cambridge or at the Trea- 
sury, buf among men of sense and honour 
it is folly or villany in the extreme. 

1 see the pitiful advantage he has taken 
of a single unguarded expression, in a letter 
not intended for the public. Yet it is only 
the expression that is unguarded. I adhere 
to the true meaning of that member of the 
sentence, taken separately as he takes it, 
and now, upon the coolest dehberation, re- 
assert that, for the purposes I referred to, 
it may be highly meritorious to the public, 
to wound the personal feelings of the sove- 
reign. It is not a general proposition, nor 
is it generally applied to the chief magis- 
trate of this or any other constitution. 
Mr Home knows as well as I do, that the 
best of princes is not displeased with the 
abuse, which he sees thrown upon his 
ostensible ministers. It makes them, I 
presume, more properly the objects of his 
royal compassion ; neither does it escape 
his sagacity, that -the lower they are de- 
graded in the public esteem, the more sub- 
missively they must depend upon his favour 
for protection. This, I affirm, upon the 
most solemn conviction, and the most cer- 
tain knowledge, is a leading maxim in the 
policy of the closet. — It is unnecessary to 
pursue the argument any farther. 

Mr Home is now a very loyal subject. 
He laments the wretched state of politics 
in this country, and sees, in a new light, 
the weakness and folly of the opposition. 
Whoever or whatever is sovereign, demands 
the respect and support of the people ;^ it 
was not so, when Nero fiddled while Rome 
was burning.^ Our gracious sovereign has 
had wonderful success, in creating new 
attachments to his person a7id family. He 
owes it, I presume, to the regular system 
he has pursued in the mystery of conversion. 
He began with an experiment upon the 
Scotch, and concludes with converting Mr 
Home.— What a pity it is that the Jews 

^ The very soliloquy of lord Suffolk, before he 
passed the Rubicon. 

^ This forms a sentence of Home's own 



should be condemned by Providence to 
wait for a Messiah of their own ! 

The priesthood are accused of misinter- 
preting the Scriptures. Mr Horne has im- 
proved upon his profession. He alters the 
text, and creates a refutable doctrine of his 
own. Such artifices cannot long delude 
the understanding of the people ; and with- 
out meaning an indecent comparison, I 
may venture to foretell, that the Bible and 
Junius will be read, when the comment- 
aries of the Jesuits are forgotten. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER LV, 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 26 Atig. 1771. 

The enemies of the people having 
now nothing better to object to my friend 
Junius, are at last obliged to quit his poli- 
tics and to rail at him for crimes he is not 
guilty of. His vanity and impiety are now 
the perpetual topics of their abuse. I do 
not mean to lessen the force of such charges 
(supposing they were true), but to show 
that they are not founded. If I admitted 
the premises, I should readily agree in all 
the consequences drawn from them. Van- 
ity indeed is a venial error, for it usually 
carries its own punishment with it ; — but if 
I thought Junius capable of uttering a dis- 
respectful word of the religion of his coun- 
try, I should be the first to renounce and 
give him up to the public contempt and inr 
dignation. As a man, I am satisfied that 
he is a Christian upon the most sincere 
conviction. As a writer, he would be 
grossly inconsistent with his political prin- 
ciples, if he dared to attack a religion 
established by those laws, which it seems 
to be the purpose of his hfe to defend. — 
Now for the proofs.— Junius is accused of 
an impious allusion to the holy sacrament, 
where he says that, if lord Weymouth be 

writing ; — and was one of his bitterest sarcasms 
against the king. But see editor's note, p. 232. 

—Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



297 



denied the cup, there will he no keeping him 
within the pale of the ministry. Now, Sir, 
I affirm that this passage refers entirely to 
a ceremonial in the Roman Cathohc church, 
which denies the cup to the laity. It has 
no manner of relation to the Protestant 
creed, and is in this country as fair an 
object of ridicule, as transubstantiation, or 
any other part of lord Peter s history in the 
Tale of the Tub. 

But Junius is charged with equal vanity 
and impiety, in comparing his writings to 
the Holy Scripture. — The formal protest he 
makes against any such comparison, avails 
him nothing. It becomes necessary then 
to show that the charge destroys itself. — If 
he be vaiii, he cannot be impious. A vain 
man does not usually compare himself to 
an object, which it is his design to under- 
value. On the other hand, if he be iinpious, 
he cannot be vain. For his impiety, if any, 
must consist in his endeavouring to degrade 
the Holy Scriptures by a comparison with 
his own contemptible writings. This would 
be folly indeed of the grossest nature, but 
where lies the vanity ? — I shall now be told, 
— ' Sir, what you say is plausible enough, 
but still you must allow that it is shamefully 
impudent in Junius to tell us that his works 
will live as long as the Bible.' My answer 
is, Agreed : but first prove that he has said 
so. Look at his words, and you will find 
that the utmost he expects is, that the Bible 
and Junius will survive the commentaries 
of the Jesuits, which may prove true in a 
fortnight. The most malignant sagacity 
cannot show that his works are, in his 
opiiiion, to live as long as the Bible. — Sup- 
pose I were to foretell that Jack and Torn 
would survive Harry. — Does it follow that 
Jack must live as long as Tom ? I would 
only illustrate my meaning, and protest 
against the least idea of profaneness. 

Yet this is the way in which Junius is 
usually answered, arraigned, and convicted. 
These candid critics never remember any 
thing he says in honour of our holy rehgion ; 
though it is true that one of his leading 
arguments is made to rest upon the internal 
evidence- which the purest of all religions 



carries with it. I quote his words, and 
conclude from them, that he is a true and 
hearty Christian, in substance, not in cere- 
mony ; though possibly he may not agree 
with my reverend lords the bishops, or with 
the Head of the Church, that prayers are 
morality, or that kneeling is religion. 

FHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER LVI. 



FROM THE REV. MR HORNE TO JUNIUS. 
16 August, 177 1. 
I CONGRATULATE you. Sir, on 
the recovery of your wonted style, though 
it has cost you a fortnight. I compassion- 
ate your labour in the composition of your 
letters, and will communicate to you the 
secret of my fluency. — Truth needs no 
ornament, and, in my opinion, what she 
borrows of the pencil is deformity. 

You brought a positive charge against 
me of corruption. I denied the charge, 
and called for your proofs. You replied 
with abuse, and re-asserted your charge. 
I called again for proofs. You reply again 
with abuse only, and drop your accusation. 
In your fortnight's letter, there is not one 
word upon the subject of my corruption. 

I have no more to say, but to return 
thanks to you for your cojidescensio?i, and 
to a grateful public and honest ministry for 
all the favours they have conferred upon 
me. The two latter, I am sure, will never 
refuse me any grace I shall solicit ; and 
since you have been pleased to acknowledge 
that you told a deliberate lie in my favour 
out of bounty, and as a charitable donation, 
why may I not expect that you will here- 
after (if you do not forget you ever men- 
tioned my name with disrespect) make the 
same acknowledgment for what you have 
said to my prejudice ? — This second recant- 
ation will perhaps be more abhorrent from 
your disposition ; but should you decline it, 
you will only afford one more instance how 
much easier it is to be generous than just, 
and that men are sometimes bountiful who 
are not honest. 



298 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



At all events I am as well satisfied with 
your panegyric as lord Chatham can be. 
Monument I shall have none ; but over my 
grave it will be said, in your own words, 
' Home s situation did not correspond with 
his intentions.' 1 

JOHN HORNE. 



LETTER LVII.2 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

My Lord, 28 Sept. tjjt. 

The people of England are not 
apprized of the full extent of their obliga- 
tions to you. They have yet no adequate 
idea of the endless variety of your character. 
They have seen you distinguished and suc- 
cessful in the continued violation of those 
moral and political duties, by which the 
little, as well as the great,, societies of life 
are collected and held together. Every 
colour, every character became you. With 
a rate of abihties, v/hich lord Weymouth 
very justly looks down upon with contempt, 
you have done as much mischief to the 
community as Cromwell would have done, 
if Crojjiwell had been a coward, and as 
much as Machiavel, if Machiavel had not 
known, that an appearance of morals and 
religion are useful in society. — To a thinlc- 
ing man, the influence of the crown will, 
in no view, appear so formidable, as when 
he observes to what enormous excesses it 
has safely conducted your Grace, without 
a ray of real understanding, without even 
the pretension to common decency or prin- 
ciple of any kind, or a single spark of per- 
sonal resolution. What must be the opera- 
tion of that pernicious influence (for which 
our kings have wisely exchanged the 
nugatory name of prerogative), that, in the 
highest stations, can so abundantly supply 
the absence of virtue, courage, and abilities, 
and quaUfy a man to be the minister of a 
great nation, whom a private gentleman 
would be ashamed and afraid to admit 



^ The epitaph would not be ill suited to the 
character. — At the best, it is but equivocal. 
^ ' The inclosed is of such importance, so very 



into his family ! Like the universal pass- 
port of an ambassador, it supersedes the 
prohibition of the laws, banishes the staple 
virtues of the country, and introduces vice 
and folly triumphantly into all the depart- 
ments of the state. Other princes, besides 
his Majesty, have had the means of corrup- 
tion within their reach, but they, have used 
it with moderation. In former times, cor- 
ruption was considered as a foreign auxiliary 
to government, and only called in upon 
extraordinary emergencies. The unfeigned 
piety, the sanctified religion, of George the 
Third have taught him to new-model the 
civil forces of the state. The natural re- 
sources of the crown are no longer confided 
in. Corruption glitters in the van ;— col- 
lects and maintains a standing army of 
mercenaries, and, at the same moment, 
impoverishes and enslaves the country. — • 
His Majesty's predecessors (excepting that 
worthy family from which you, my Lord, 
are unquestionably descended) had some 
generous qualities in their composition, 
with vices, I confess, or frailties in abund- 
ance. They were kings or gentlemen, not 
hypocrites or priests. They were at the 
head of the church, but did not know the 
value of their office. They said their 
prayers without ceremony, and had too 
little priestcraft in their understanding, to 
reconcile the sanctimonious forms of re- 
ligion with the utter destruction of the 
morahty of their people. — My Lord, this is 
fact, not declamation. — With all your par- 
tiality to the house of Stuart, you must 
confess, that even Charles the Second would 
have blushed at that open encouragement, 
at those eager, meretricious caresses, with 
which every species of private vice and 
public prostitution is received at St James s. 
— The unfortunate house of Stuart has 
been treated with an asperity, which, if 
comparison be a defence, seems to border 
upon injustice. Neither Charles nor his 
brother were qualified to support such a 
system of measures, as would be neces^sary 
to change the government, and subvert the 

material, that it jmist be given to the public im- 
mediately.' Private Letter, No. 38.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



299 



constitution of England. One of them was 
too much in earnest in his pleasures, — the 
other in his religion. But the danger to 
this country would cease to be problemat- 
ical, if the crown should ever descend to a 
prince, whose apparent simplicity might 
throw his subjects off their guard, — who 
might be no libertine in behaviour, — who 
should have no sense of honour to resti-ain 
him, and who, with just religion enough to 
impose upon the multitude, might have no 
scruples of conscience to interfere with his 
morality. With these honourable qualifi- 
cations, and the decisive advantage of 
situation, low craft and falsehood are all the 
abilities that are wanting to destroy the 
wisdom of ages, and to deface the noblest 
monument that human pohcy has erected 
— I know such a man ; — My Lord, I know 
you both ; and with the blessing of God 
(for I too ani religious), the people of Eng- 
land shall know you as well as I do. I am 
not very sure, that greater abilities w'ould 
not, in effect, be an impediment to a design, 
which seems at first sight to require a 
superior capacity. A better understanding 
might make him sensible of the wonderful 
beauty of that system he was endeavouring 
to corrupt. The danger of the attempt 
might alarm him. The meanness and 
intrinsic worthlessness of the object (sup- 
posing he could attain to it) would fill him 
with shame, repentance, and disgust. But 
these are sensations v^'hich find no entrance 
into a barbarous, contracted heart. In 
some men, there is a malignant passion to 
destroy the works of genius, literature, and 
freedom. The Vandal and the monk find 
equal gratification in it. 

Reflections like these, my Lord, have a 
general relation to your Grace, and insepar- 
ably attend you, in whatever company or 
situation your character occurs to us. They 
have no immediate connexion with the 



^ When the armament took place, in conse- 
quence of the dispute with Spain, respecting 
Falkland's Islands, the navy was found to be in 
a most deplorable state. By the exertions of the 
late earl of Sandwich, then, and for many years 
afterwards, first lord of the Admiralty, it was 
greatly renovated. It is however to later 



following recent fact, which I lay before the 
public, for the honour of the best of sove- 
reigns, and for the edification of his people. 
A prince (whose piety and self-denial, 
one would think, might secure him from 
such a multitude of worldly necessities), 
with an annual revenue of near a million 
sterling, unfortunately wants mojiey. — The 
navy of England, by an equally strange 
concurrence of unforeseen circumstances 
(though not quite so unfortunately for his 
Majesty), is in equal want of timber. The 
world knows in what a; hopeful condition 
you delivered the navy to your successor, 
and in what a condition we found it in the 
moment of distress. ^ You were determined 
it should continue in the situation in which 
you left it. It happened, however, very 
luckily for the privy purse, that one of the 
above wants promised fair to supply the 
other. Our religious, benevolent, generous 
sovereign has no objection to selling liis oion 
timber to his own Admiralty, to repair his 
OT.vn ships, nor to putting the money into 
his own pocket. People of a religious tium 
naturally adhere to the principles of the 
church. Whatever they acquire falls into 
77io>'tmain. — Upon a representation from 
the Admiralty of the extraordinary \\'ant of 
timber, for the indispensable repairs of the 
navy, the surveyor-general was directed to 
make a survey of the timber in all th,e royal 
chases and forests in England. Having 
obeyed his orders with accuracy and atten- 
tion, he reported, that the finest timber he 
had any \\'here met with, and the properest 
in every respect for the purposes of the navy, 
was in Whittlebury Forest, of which yotrr 
Grace, I think, is hereditar}'- ranger. In 
consequence of this report, the usual war- 
rant was prepared at the Treasury, and 
delivered to the surveyor, by which he or 
his deputy were authorized to cut down any 
trees in Whittlebury Forest, which should 



periods, to the superintendence of the present 
earl Spencer, and some of his very able success- 
ors, that we are to look for its true pinnacle of 
glory : — for the manifestation of that expert and 
chivalrous courage which has made it indeed the 
envy of an individual tyrant, but the admiration 
of the universe. — Edit. 



300 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



appear to be proper for the purposes above- 
mentioned. The deputy being informed 
that the warrant was signed and deHvered 
to his principal in London, crosses the 
country to Northamptonshire, and with an 
officious zeal for the public service, begins 
to do his duty in the forest. Unfortunately 
for him he had not the warrant in his 
pocket. The oversight was enormous, and 
you have punished him for it accordingly. 
You have insisted that an active, useful 
officer should be dismissed from his place. 
You have ruined an innocent man and his 
family. — In what language shall I address 
so black, so cowardly a tyrant ; — thou 
worse than otie of the Brunswicks, and all 
the Stuarts ! — To them who know lord 
North, it is unnecessary to say, that he was 
mean and base enough to submit to you. — 
This however is but a small part of the fact. 
After ruining the surveyor's deputy, for act- 
ing without the warrant, you attacked the 
warrant itself. You declared it was illegal, 
and swore, in afit of foaming, frantic passion, 
that it never should be executed. You assert- 
ed upon your honour, that in the grant of the 
rangership of VVhittlebury Forest, made by 
Charles the Secofid (whom, with a modesty 
that would do honour to Mr Rigby, you are 
pleased to call your ancestor) to one of his 
bastards (from whom I make no doubt of 
your descent), the property of the timber is 
vested in the ranger. — I have examined the 



^ Few persons have yet forgotten the commo- 
tion into which the nation was thrown by this 
outrageous attempt of the minister to enlarge the 
royal prerogative. By the common law of Eng- 
land no man can be disturbed in his title who 
has been in quiet possession of an estate for sixty 
years ; but by an old obsolete law, a wretched 
remnant of ancient tyranny, it was asserted that 
nullum tempus occurrit reg^i, and such was the 
commencement of the law itself : in plain Eng- 
lish, that no term of possession, whether sixty 
or a hundred and sixty years, can defend against 
a claim of the crown. This law was attempted 
to be revived in the reign of James I. ; but the 
attempt was so effectually opposed in its outset 
by th.it sound constitutional lawyer, sir Edward 
Coke, that a Bill of a contrary tendency was 
suffered to pass in its stead, which expressly 
secured every estate of sixty years' possession, 
* against all and every person having or pre- 
tending to have any estate, right, or title, byforce 
or colour of any letters patent, or grants, upon 



original grant, and now, in the face of the 
public, contradict you directly upon the 
fact. The very reverse of what you have 
asserted upon your honour is the truth. 
The grant, expressly, and by a particular 
clause, reserves the property of the timber 
for the use of the crown. — In spite of this 
evidence, — in defiance of the representa- 
tions of the Admiralty, — in perfect mockery 
of the notorious distresses of the English 
navy, and those equally pressing, and al- 
most equally notorious, necessities of your 
pious sovereign, — here the matter rests. — 
The lords of the Treasury recall their war- 
rant ; the deputy-surveyor is ruined for 
doing his duty ; — Mr John Pitt (whose 
name I suppose is offensive to you) submits 
to be brow-beaten and insulted ;— the oaks 
keep their ground ; — the king is defrauded, 
and the navy of England may perish for 
\\ant of the best and finest timber in the 
island. And all this is submitted to — to 
appease the duke of Grafton ! — To gratify 
the man who has involved the king and his 
kingdom in confusion and distress, and 
who, like a treacherous coward, deserted 
his sovereign in the midst of it ! 

There has been a strange alteration in 
your doctrines, since you thought it advis- 
able to rob the duke of Portland of his pro- 
perty, in order to strengthen the interest of 
lord Bute's son-in-law, before the last 
general election. i Nullum tempus occurrit 



suggestion of concealment, or defective titles, of 
or for which said manors, lands, and tenements, 
no verdict, judgment, or decree, hath been had 
or given.' 

This extraordinary and unconstitutional pre- 
rogative of the crown, was attempted to be 
revived by the duke of Grafton in 1767 ; who, 
for the mere purpose of carrying an election for 
the county of Cumberland in favour of sir James 
Lowther against the duke of Pordand, had ad- 
mitted the former to become a royal grantee of 
an enormous portion of what had formerly been 
crown lands — but which had been for upwards 
of seventy years in the different families of the 
actual possessors. This attempt introduced sir 
George Savile's famous Bill, which was called 
the Quieting Bill, and was intended to render 
more valid the Act of James I. in favour of the 
subject against the crown. The remainder shall 
be given to the reader in an extract from a writer 
in the Public Advertiser, who adopted the signa- 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



301 



regi, was then your boasted motto, and the 
cry of all your hungry partisans. Now it 



tare of Ulysses, and addressed two Letters to 
lord North on this subject. 

' The Bill was lost. But the perseverance of a 
good man in a good cause is not easilj'^ shaken. 
Sir George Savile revived the Bill in the suc- 
ceeding session ; and its success at last, notwith- 
standing all the efforts of your Lordship, and the 
rest of the administration, gave a signal proof of 
the constitutional spirit which will break forth, 
when the struggle begins between liberty and 
prerogative. — In the progress of the Bill, a clause 
was proposed by the friends of sir James Low- 
ther, which left to the grantees of the crown, 
twelve months from the 1st of Jan. 1769, for the 
prosecution of their suits. The friends of the 
Bill, anxious to secure to the subject, if they 
could, so important a law, did not hesitate in 
admitting the clause. They assented to the pro- 
position, that the case of sir James Lowther 
should remaia untouched by the Bill then de- 
pending. 

' Such was that consent of which Sir James's 
friends have talked so much : And what does it 
at last amount to ? We agree not to touch the 
case of sir James Lowther by this Bill. Does 
this important agreement (if by the way such an 
agreement could be made by private parties, in 
restraint of the powers of parliament] never to 
interpose ? at no time, in no circumstances, 
under no provocations of the most flagrant abuse, 
or the most urgent necessity ? Does it mean to 
say, that all future parliaments shall to eternity 
be barred from interfering, though impelled to it 
by the clearest justice? Do the friends of the 
duke of Portland, does the whole legislature, 
mean to ratify, to confirm, and to sanctify that 
hateful grant ? If these intentions neither can 
nor will be attributed to the consent given, the 
utmost construction of it can extend no farther, 
than I have contended that its true sense imports, 
a neutrality at that time and in that Bill towards 
the question. If the case should be found to re- 
quire future interposition, future parliaments 
will interpose. But till the conduct of sir James 
Lowther shall make it necessary for us to point 
at him personally, we will give him credit for 
those feelings of sense, of decency, and of remorse, 
that shall make it peevish to revive the memory 
of that odious transaction. 

' Have these sensations operated upon sir 
James? What has been his conduct? On the 
last day of the year allowed him, he served 
above 400 ejectments. I'he county of Cumber- 
land, from one extremity of it to the other, was 
in the utmost confusion. Not a man who had 
voted against him within the described limits of 
the grant was to escape. The word was gone 
forth — The rebels must be sacrificed, the county 
must be crushed. But the alarm that was given 
by so extensive and unparalleled revenge, made 
it very soon prudent and necessary for sir James 
to abandon many of those suits : And they stood 
then reduced to the moderate number of 15 bills 
in a Court of Equity, and 225 suits at law. 



seems a grant of Charles the Second to one 
of his bastards is to be held sacred and in- 



' Your Lordship, perhaps, could see with plea- 
sure the miseries of that devoted county. You 
could, perhaps, contemplate with inward satis- 
faction, the glorious and exalted figure of sir 
James Lowther, while you beheld him, with an 
air of triumphant dignity, ride in the whirlwind 
and direct the storm. Other ideas filled the mind 
of sir William Meredith. He could not hear of 
the distress and confusion into which that unfor- 
tunate county was plunged by the clause alluded 
to, without immediately resolving to do that 
justice to Cumberland, which had been already 
shown to every other county in the king's do- 
minions. He therefore brought in the Bill to 
repeal that clause. 

' I do not mean to enter into abstruse argu- 
ments upon the subject. In truth, it is a subject 
that the plain common sense of every moder- 
ate capacity, the natural and first feelings of 
every generous and honest heart, must instantly 
decide upon. A law is made for the ge?ieral 
quiet of the subject. A clause improvidently 
admitted (upon a principle of delicacy which sub- 
sequent events have not justified) counteracts 
the intention of that law ; by perverting its bene- 
ficial purposes, and making it operate as a partial 
instrument of oppression, instead of securing to 
the whole kingdom the blessings it was intended 
to diffuse. Is not this a state of the fact ? Was 
not the whole kingdom, Cumberland excepted, 
in the full enjoyment of that security which the 
Bill of quiet was intended to procure ? And was 
not Cumberland, and Cumberland alone, sacri- 
ficed by this clause ? For extraordinary as the 
fact is, it is a truth which ought to be known, 
and which I am sure nobody will dare to contro- 
vert, that sir James Lowther is the single 
grantee of the crown who has availed himself of 
this clause. There was not a man to be found, 
sir James Lowther excepted, who would suffer 
himself to be transmitted to posterity as the last 
Englishman who exercised over his fellow-sub- 
jects this expiring right of barbarity. 

' Ashamed of proceedings which all men saw 
with concern, the Bill operated so far upon sir 
James, that he was at last induced to offer to 
abandon every other suit he had begun, provided 
only that he might be at full liberty to prosecute 
with effect the great delinquent, the duke of 
Portland. 

' Your Lordship's notions of equal justice re- 
conciled you to the idea. You thought that his 
Grace's situation in life, and his fortune, ex- 
empted him from compassion ; and that he was 
therefore excluded from all claim or pretension 
to common justice. 

' It is your duty, my Lord, to inform the public 
why that grant is acknowledged to be untenable 
against all but his Grace of Portland? Why it 
is to be abandoned and renounced in every in- 
stance but in his? What there is in it, if sir 
James thought it shameful and unjustifiable to 
proceed against the 224, that should make it 
honourable or just to pursue the 225th 7 Sir 



302 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



violable ! It must not be questioned by the 
king's servants, nor submitted to any inter- 
pretation but your own. — My Lord, this 
was not the language you held, when it 
suited you to insult the memory of the 
glorious deliverer of England from that 
detested family, to which you are still more 
nearly alUed in principle than in blood. — 
In the name of decency and common sense, 
what are your Grace's merits, either with 
king or ministry, that should entitle you to 
assume this domineering authority over 
both? — Is it the fortunate consanguinity 



James Lowther and your Lordship have allowed 
that all traces of this detested grant should be 
obliterated with respect to every suit commenced, 
one only excepted. Have you tried those suits? 
Have you heard their respective merits ? Can 
you distinguish between them, and say this man 
should be quieted ; that man ought to be 
harassed and oppressed ? Yet you have said so ; 
— for the duke of Portland is an exception to all 
cases. He is not fit to have the benefit of that 
law (created by the severity of his particular 
case) which every other Englishman does 
actually enjoy. He ought to stand branded and 
exposed to all posterity : He shall be attainted 
b}' name : He must fall the single victim, and be 
made the only sacrifice for the peace and quiet 
of this country. 

' Let us then hear no more of the objection of 
parliamentary interposition pendente lite, by an 
ex post facto law. Your Lordship heard in the 
proper place, and could not refute, the many 
precedents of laws made ex post facto upon 
urgent occasions. Your Lordship could not 
then, nor will now deny, that when parliaments 
have interfered to protect the subject againsi 
oppressive grants, they have always done it ; 
they must ever do it pendente lite. Till the 
grant is put in suit, no grievance can be said to 
exist. The prosecutions imder it are the very 
grievance which parliament interposes to redress. 
Such was the view, and such was the effect of 
the Bill for the general quiet of the subject in 
king James's time, and which sir George Savile's 
was intended to pursue. — But, my Lord, you 
cannot avail yourself of the argument. The 
concession of sir James Lowther has alone de- 
feated it. 

' A grant is passed, affecting in its consequences 
the rights of 225 persons. By a law that should 
be made ex post facto, pendente lite, you would 
deem it honourable and just to restrain sir James 
Lowther from proceedings in 224 of these suits. 
It remains for your Lordship to satisfy the world 
that it is honourable and just that he should 
proceed in the 225th. You must do more. — You 
must prove that it will not be both dishonourable 
and unjust if he do, or if he be suffered to pro- 
ceed in it.' 

In order to relieve the duke of Portland from 



you claim with the house of Stu'art .^^Is it 
the secret correspondence you have for so 
many years carried on with lord Bute, by 
the assiduous assistance of your cream- 
coloured parasite f — Could not your gal- 
lantry find sufficient employment for him, 
in those gentle offices by which he first 
acquired the tender friendship of lord Bar- 
rington f — Or is it only that wonderful 
sympathy of manners, which subsists be- 
tween your Grace and one of your supe- 
riors, and does so much honour to you 
both ? — Is the union of Blifil and Black 



the suit of sir James Lov/ther ; another explana- 
tory Bill was introduced into the House of Com- 
mons in Feb. 7, 1771, by which the clause in 
favour of sir James Lowther was to be repealed : 
the question was lost on the third reading by 164 
in behalf of the clause, against 155 in opposition 
to it. 

The reader will nevertheless rejoice to hear 
that the crown, on the part of sir James Lowther, 
was nonsuited in the Court of Exchequer, though 
it had triumphed in the House of Commons. 
The following short statement of this celebrated 
trial is taken from the Public Advertiser, Nov, 
22, 1771. 'Wednesday came on before the 
Barons of the Exchequer, at Westminster Hall, 
the great cause between sir James Lowther, 
Bart, plaintiff, and the duke of Portland, de- 
fendant, in consequence of a grant made to sir 
James Lowther of the forest of Inglewood, in 
the year 1767, of lands being for upwards of 
seventy years in the possession of the duke of 
Portland. Their Lordships came into court 
about nine o'clock, and after waiting near an 
hour for baron Adams, the Chief Baron received 
a letter from his Lordship, informing him of the 
impossibility of his attending the court that day, 
on account of the death of lady Adams. The 
court then entered into the business of the day, 
and recited all the records and prerogatives of 
the crown, from Edward the First to the lease 
made to sir James Lowther ; when, after a full, 
candid, and most impartial examination of the 
said lease, it was found invalid, agreeable to the 
statute made in the first year of queen Anne, 
which recites 'that upon every grant, leaSe, or 
assurance, there be reserved a reasonable rent, 
not being under the third part of the clear 
yearly value of such of the said manors, mes- 
suages, lands, &c. &c. as shall be contained in 
such lease or grant.' Sir James Lowther's 
grant from the crown being only a quit rent of 
13s. and 4d. for the whole forest of Inglewood, 
was immediately judged by the Court an inade- 
quate third proportion, and he was nonsuited 
accordingly.' 

See the whole transaction more fully expa- 
tiated upon in Miscellaneous Letters signed 
Mnomon, Nos. XIII. and XIV.— Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



303 



George no longer a romance f^From what- 
ever origin yoMX influence in this country 
arises, it is a phaenoinenon in the history of 
human virtue and understanding. — Good 
men can hardly believe the fact. Wise 



^ To this Letter the following answer was 
returned, which, as it proves Junius to have 
been mistaken as to the facts relative to Whittle- 
bury Forest, is here inserted on the score of im- 
partiality. 

FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

The Story of the Oaks, addressed to the 
Public and to Junius. 

The principles upon which Junius fabricates 
all his declamations to the public, have been 
fairly unmasked and plainly exhibited in two 
former Letters. — They need only an exposure to 
nullify every thing he promulgates, and render 
him abominable in the eyes of common sense 
and honesty. — But to follow so gross a falsifier 
through the infinity of his wicked libels and 
virulent attacks upon the king, and many of the 
worthiest characters in the nation, is a task too 
foul for any gentleman to undertake. — Suffice it 
therefore to observe, that JuNius's labours all 
tend to sinister ends, and they are glossed over 
with a high varnish only to conceal the coarse- 
ness of the design. — INIen, and not measures, are 
his aim. — He avails himself of the unhappy 
licentiousness of the times, and levels all his 
rhetoric at your passions, not at your reason. 

He began his career upon the old infamous 
maxim in political writing, that lies are swifter 
of foot than truth, and when they are roundly 
and boldly asserted will find believers; but 
luckily for us, that left-handed wisdom called 
cunning, always detects and frustrates itself. 

The last charge which he has blazoned in such 
fiery colours against the duke of Grafton relative 
to the Oaks, may serve as a specimen of his 
veracity. — The fact is in no one instance as he 
has represented it. — An officer was sent down by 
the commissioners of the navy (as he declared) 
to inspect the timber in Salcey and Whittlebury 
Forests in Northamptonshire ; and was ordered 
to make a return of what he found fit for the 
purposes of ship-building. — He accordingly 
marked upwards of four thousand trees in the 
latter, which are almost all that deserve the 
name of timber in the whole forest. — In conse- 
quence of his return an application was made to 
the Treasury for permission to cut down thirteen 
hundred loads — and to make a just parody upon 
JuNius's own words, ' to them who know lord 
North it is unnecessary to say that he was very 
ready to give his assent ; ' as the advancement of 
every public good has ever been the invariable 
rule of his Lordship's conduct. — But it was never 
intended nor suspected that it would be carried 
into a rash unseasonable execution, without due 
regard being first paid to the circumstances 
attendant upon such an operation ; nor was the 



men are unable to account for it. Religious 
men find exercise for their faith, and make 
it the last effort of their piety, not to repine 
against Providence. 

JUNIUS.i 



exigency so urgent as to warrant a flagrant 
violation of private property ; which the adjacent 
parishes must have suffered in their right of 
commonage, and the duke in his hereditary 
right to the underwood, had he not remonstrated 
against it. — Besides, the season for felling timber 
was so far past, that the bark (which is a valuable 
article, and will never run except in April or May 
while the sap is rising) would have been entirely 
lost. — But there is another argument to be 
adduced still more cogent than all the rest, it 
being a great national concern, which is to pre- 
serve the succession of young trees. — This can 
only be done by carefully clearing away the 
common underwood so as to expose them to plain 
view, otherwise they would be inevitably de- 
molished, partly by the falling of the trees, and 
partly by the carelessness of workmen, as they 
grow mostly under them from the acorns which 
drop. — There is an established and legal rule 
against cutting the underwood oftener than once 
in twenty-one years ; for nine years after it i5 
cut, the same regulation prescribes that the 
respective coppices shall be fenced in to prevent 
the cattle and deer from destroying the young 
tender shoots ; during which time the vicinage 
is deprived of the pasture ; and for the remaining 
twelve years of that term, the neighbouring 
villages have a positive right of common. Under- 
wood is as necessary to draw young trees up 
straight, and produce good timber, as a hot-bed 
is for raising melons and mushrooms. — There 
are many secondary considerations which ought 
to have their weight, though it is not requisite 
after what has been advanced, to swell this 
narrative by enumerating them. — Without de- 
liberating upon these essential points, so ardent 
was the zeal of the surveyor-general for the 
public service (for the trifling perquisites of the 
lop and chips, amounting to little more than half 
the value of the timber, cannot be deemed a 
sufficient incentive for committing such a depre- 
dation), that he immediately dispatched a person 
unauthorized, to hack and \\.^\n, without the least 
previous intimation being given to the hereditary 
ranger, deputy ranger, or the king's wood-ward. 
In opposition to all this strange precipitancy and 
irregularity, the duke of Grafton did no more 
than interpose a candid representation of the 
case ; which wisely put a stop to such unjust 
proceedings. — He never once made use of those 
absurd declarations which Junius has so in- 
vidiously put in his mouth, ' that the property of 
the timber was vested in the ranger.' — And to 
retort a few more of his own precious words, he 
must here be ' contradicted in the face of the 
public directly upon the fact. — The very reverse 
of what he has asserted is the truth ' — for neither 
the present duke nor his predecessor ever allowed 



304 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 


LETTER LVIIL 

ADDRESSED TO THE LIVERY OF 
LONDON. 

Gentlemen, 30 Sept. 1771. 

If yoji alone were concerned in 
the event of the present election of a chief 
magistrate of the metropolis, it would be 
the highest presumption in a stranger, to 
attempt to influence your choice, or even to 
offer you his opinion. But the situation of 
public affairs has annexed an extraordinary 
importance to your resolutions. You can- 
not, in the choice of your magistrate, 
, determine for yourselves only. You are 
going to determine upon a point, in which 
every member of the community is interest- 
ed.— I will not scruple to say, that the very 
being of that law, of that right, of that 
constitution, for which we have been so 
long contending, is now at stake. They 
who would ensnare your judgment, tell 
you it is a common, ordinajy case, and to 

a single stick of timber to be cut down, for any 
purpose, without first having obtained a regular 
order from the Treasury— on the contrary (as it 
has been heretofore justly remarked) it has been 
preserved for the use of the public, with an 
attention and integrity not to be parallelled in 
any other royal forest. 

For the better convenience of supplying the 
industrious poor of the circumjacent country with 
firing, it has been always a custom to arrange 
the coppices in a regular progression, so as to 
cut two or more annually. — There are however 
two coppices (which contain a great quantity of 
fine timber) exempt from commonage ; and as 
none of the stated periods for the others are yet 
expired, though they are too young, yet rather 
than withhold the wood from the navy, the duke 
has given orders for fencing and clearing them, 
which will be effected long ere the proper season 
arrives for felling the trees— The rest will be cut 
as they fall in course.—' Mr Junius, this is fact, 
not declamation.'— The oaks will come down; 
the king will not be defrauded ; nor will the navy 
of England perish for want of them ! 

How must it scandalize all our patriots that 
their omniscient Junius should discover such 
consummate ignorance, as to be reduced to the 
necessity of examining the original grant, to 
inform himself of a notorious point, which he 
might have learned from every attorney's clerk 
throughout the kingdom ; nay even from Brass 
Crosby, who was only a menial servant to an 
attorney, ' that the timber in royal forests is re- 
served for the use of the crown ? ' 


be decided by ordinary precedent and prac- 
tice. They artfully conclude, from moder- 
ate peaceable times to times which are not 
moderate, and which ought not to be peace- 
able. — While they solicit your favour, they 
insist upon a rule of rotation, which ex- 
cludes all idea of election. ^ 

Let me be honoured with a few minutes 
of your attention. — The question, to those 
who mean fairly to the liberty of the people 
(which we all profess to have in view), lies 
within a very narrow compass. — Do you 
mean to desert that just and honourable 
system of measures which you have hitherto 
pursued, in hopes of obtaining from par- 
Hament, or from the crown, a full redress of 
past grievances, and a security for the 
future ? — Do you think the cause desperate, 
and will you declare that you think so to 
the whole people of England ?— If this be 
your meaning and opinion, you will act 
consistently with it in chusing Mr Nash. — 
I profess to be unacquainted with his pri- 
vate character. But he has acted as a 
magistrate, — as a public man.^As such I 


This, I say, may serve for a damning proof of 
JuNius's veracity— and all his slanderous pro- 
ductions are equally refutable and false. — In the 
abundance of his modesty, he has somewhere 
told us that his writings will be handed down to 
posterity like the Bible !— It is needless for me to 
censure his irreverent comparison ; nor will I 
altogether deny his prediction ; for while the 
Bible endures as a monument of truth, his writ- 
ings may stand in odious contrast as a monument 
of lies. Philalethes. — Edit. 

^ By the ordinary rotation of office, the 
mayoralty of the ensuing year, it was well 
known, would pass into the hands of alderman 
Nash, whose political views concurred with those 
of the existing administration : and the object of 
the present Letter therefore is to persuade the 
Livery to overlook Mr Nash, and by an extra- 
ordinary exercise of their elective franchise, to 
return Mr Crosby or Mr Sawbridge in his stead, 
whose poUtics were well known to be of the 
Whig school. But the divisions which had been 
introduced into the Bill of Rights Society, 
through the vanity of Oliver and Home, had 
now spread to the city, and almost ruined the 
popular cause. — Many were suspicious of the 
purity of its leaders— and still more were grown 
indifferent as to its result.— The motives urged 
by Junius and his party were not deemed of 
sufficient importance to violate an established 
custom, and Mr Nash was elected lord mayor. 
—Edit, 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



305 



speak of him. — I see his name in a protest 
against one of your remonstrances to the 
crown. — He has done every thing in his 
power to destroy the freedom of popular 
elections in the city, by pubHshing the poll 
upon a former occasion ; and I know, in 
general, that he has distinguished himself, 
by slighting and thwarting all those public 
measures, which you have engaged in with 
the greatest warmth, and hitherto thought 
most worthy of your approbation. — From 
his past conduct what conclusion will you 
draw, but that he will act the same part 
as lord mayor, which he has invariably 
acted as alderman and sheriff f He cannot 
alter his conduct, without confessing that 
he never acted upon principle of any kind. 
— I should be sorry to injure the character 
of a man, who perhaps may be honest in 
his intentions, by supposing it /£)j-i-Z(5/i? that 
he can ever concur with you in any poli- 
tical measure, or opinion. 

If, on the other hand, you mean to per- 
severe in those resolutions for the public 
good, which, though not always successful, 
are always honourable, your choice will 
naturally incline to those men, who (what- 
ever they be in other respects) are most 
likely to co-operate with you in the great 
purposes which you are determined not to 
relinquish : — The question is not, of what 
metal your instruments are made, but 
whether they are adapted to the work you 
have in handf The honours of the city, in 
these tifnes, are improperly, because exclu- 
sively, called a reward. You mean not 
merely to pay^ but to employ. — Are Mr 
Crosby and Mr Sawbridge likely to execute 
the extraordinary, as well as the ordinary, 
duties of lord mayor? — Will they grant you 
common halls when it shall be necessary? — 
Will they go up with remonstrances to the 
king? — Have they firmness enough to meet 
the fury of a venal House of Commons ? — 
Have they fortitude enough not to shrink 
at imprisonment ? — Have they spirit enough 
to hazard their Hves and fortunes in a con- 
test, if it should be necessary, with a pros- 

^ See Private Letter, No. 56. — Edit. 



tituted legislature ? — If these questions can 
fairly be answered in the affirmative, your 
choice is made. Forgive this passionate 
language. — I am unable to correct it. — The 
subject comes home to us all. — It is the 
language of my heart.^ 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER LIX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 5 October, 1771. 

No man laments, more sincerely 
than I do, the unhappy differences which 
have arisen among the friends of the 
people, and divided them from each other. 
The cause undoubtedly suffers, as well by 
the diminution of that strength, which 
union carries with it, as by the separate 
loss of personal reputation, which every 
man sustains, when his character and con- 
duct are frequently held forth in odious or 

contemptible colours. These differences 

are only advantageous to the common ene- 
my of the country.— The hearty friends of 
the cause are provoked and disgusted. The 
lukewarm advocate avails himself of any 
pretence to relapse into that indolent indif- 
ference about every thing that ought to 
interest an Enghshman, so unjustly digni- 
fied with the title of moderation. The 

false, insidious partisan, who creates or 
foments the disorder, sees the fruit of his 
dishonest industry ripen beyond his hopes, 
and rejoices in the promise of a banquet, 
only dehcious to such an appetite as his 
own. — It is time for those who really mean 
the Cause and the People,^ who have no 
view to private advantage, and who have 
virtue enough to prefer the general good of 
the community to the gratification of per- 
sonal animosities, — it is time for such men 
to interpose. — Let us try whether these 
fatal dissensions may not yet be reconciled ; 
or, if that be impracticable, let us guard at 
least against the worst effects of division, 
and endeavour to persuade these furious 

^ See Private Letter, No. 6^. — Edit. ;/ 
20 



;o6 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



partisans, if they will not consent to draw 
together, to be separately useful to that 
cause which they all pretend to be attached 
to.— Honour and honesty must not be re- 
nounced, although a thousand modes of 
right and wrong were to occupy the degrees 
of morality between Zeno and Epicurus. 
The fundamental principles of Christianity 
may still be preserved, though every zeal- 
ous sectary adheres to his own exclusive 
doctrine, and pious ecclesiastics make it 
part of their religion to persecute one 

another. The civil constitution too, 

that legal liberty, that general creed, which 
every Englishman professes, may still be 
supported, though Wilkes, and Home, 
and Townshend, and Sawbridge should 
obstinately refuse to communicate, and 
even if the fathers of the church, if Savile, 
Richmond, Camden, Rockingham, and 
Chatham, should disagree in the cere- 
monies of their political worship, and even 
in the interpretation of twenty texts in 
Magna Charta. — I speak to the people as 
one of the people. — Let us employ these 
men in whatever departments their various 
abiUties are best suited to, and as much to 
the advantage of the common cause, as 
their different inclinations will permit. 
They cannot serve us, without essentially 
serving themselves. 

If Mr Nash be elected, he will hardly 
venture, after so recent a mark of the per- 
sonal esteem of his fellow-citizens, to de- 
clare himself immediately a courtier. The 
spirit and activity of the sheriffs will, I 
hope, be sufficient to counteract any sinis- 
ter intentions of the lord mayor. In col- 
lision with theiy virtue, perhaps he may 
take fire. 

It is not necessary to exact from Mr 
Wilkes the virtues of a Stoic. They were 
inconsistent with themselves, who, almost 
at the same moment, represented him as 
the basest of mankind, yet seemed to ex- 
pect from him such instances of fortitude 
and self-denial, as would do honour to an 
apostle. It is not however flattery to say, 
that he is obstinate, intrepid, and fertile in 
expedients. — That he has no possible re- 



source, but in the public favour, is, in my 
judgment, a considerable recommendation 
of him. I wish that every man, who pre* 
tended to popularity, were in the same pre- 
dicament. I wish that a retreat to St 
James's were not so easy and open, as pa- 
triots have found it. To Mr Wilkes there 
is no access. However he may be misled 
by passion or imprudence, I think he can- 
not be guilty of a deliberate treachery to 
the public. The favour of his country con- 
stitutes the shield, which defends him 
against a thousand daggers. — Desertion 
would disarm him. 

I can more readily admire the liberal 
spirit and integrity than the sound judg- 
ment of any man, who prefers a republican 
form of government, in this or any other 
empire of equal extent, to a monarchy so 
quahfied and limited as ours. I am con- 
vinced, that neither is it in theory the wisest 
system of government, nor practicable in 
this country. Yet, though I hope the Eng- 
lish constitution will for ever preserve iis 
original monarchical form, I would have 
the manners of the people purely and 
strictly republican. —I do not mean the 
licentious spirit of anarchy and riot. — I 
mean a general attachment to the common 
weal, distinct from any partial attachment 
to persons or famihes ; — an imphcit sub- 
mission to the laws only, and an affection 
to the magistrate, proportioned to the in- 
tegrity and wisdom with which he dis- 
tributes justice to his people, and adminis- 
ters their affairs. The present habit of 
our poUtical body appears to me the very 
reverse of what it ought to be. The form 
of the constitution leans rather more than 
enough to the popular branch ; while, in 
effect, the manners of the people (of those 
at least who are likely to take a lead in the 
country) incHne too generally to a depend- 
ence upon the crown. The real friends of 
arbitrary power combine the facts, and are 
not inconsistent with their principles, when 
they strenuously support the unwarrantable 
privileges assumed by the House of Com- 
mons. — In these circumstances, it were 
much to be desired that we had many 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



307 



such men as Mr Savvbridge to represent us 
in parliament. — I speak from common re- 
port and opinion .only, when I impute to 
him a speculative predilection in favour of 
a republic. — In the personal conduct and 
manners of the man, I cannot be mistaken. 
He has shown himself possessed of that 
repubhcan firmness, which the times re- 
quire, and by which an English gentleman 
may be as usefully and as honourably dis- 
tinguished, as any citizen of ancient Rome, 
of Athens, or Lacedaemon. 

Mr Tovvnshend complains, that the pub- 
lic gratitude has not been answerable to 
his deserts.— It is not difficult to trace the 
artifices, which have suggested to him a 
language so unworthy of his understanding. 
A great man commands the affections of 
the people. A prudent man does not com- 
plain when he has lost them. Yet they 
are far from being lost to Mr Townshend. 
He has treated our opinion a little too 
cavaherly. A young man is apt to rely too 
confidently upon himself, to be as attentive 
to his mistress as a pohte and passionate 
lover ought to be. Perhaps he found her 
at first too easy a conquest. — Yet, I fancy, 
she will be ready to receive him, whenever 
he thinks proper to renew his addresses. 
With all his youth, his spirit, and his ap- 
pearance, it would be indecent in the lady 
to sohcit his return. 

I have too much respect for the abihties 
of Mr Home, to flatter myself that these 
gentlemen will ever be cordially re-united. 
It is not, however, unreasonable to expect, 
that each of them should act his separate 
part, with honour and integrity to the pub- 
he. — As for differences of opinion upon 
speculative questions, if we wait until they 
are reconciled, the action of human affairs 
must be suspended for ever. But neither 
are we to look for perfection in any one 

man, nor for agreement among many. 

When lord Chatham affirms, that the 
authority of the British legislature is not 
supreme over the colonies, in the same 
sense in which it is supreme over Great 

Britain ; when lord Camden supposes a 

necessity (which the king is to judge of), 



and, founded upon that necessity, attributes 
to the crown a legal power (not given by 
the act itself) to suspend the operation of 
an act of the legislature, — I hsten to them 
both with diffidence and respect, but with- 
out the smallest degree of conviction or 
assent. Yet, I doubt not, they delivered 
their real sentiments, nor ought they to be 
hastily condemned. — I too have a claim to 
the candid interpretation of my country, 
when I acknowledge an involuntary com- 
pulsive assent to one very unpopular 
opinion. I lament the unhappy necessity, 
whenever it arises, of providing for the 
safety of the state, by a temporary invasion 
of the personal liberty of the subject. ■■■ 
Would to God it were practicable to recon- 
cile these important objects, in every pos- 
sible situation of public affairs ! — I regard 
the legal liberty of the meanest man in 
Britain, as much as my own, and would 
defend it with the same zeal. I know we 
must stand or fall together. But I never 
can doubt, that the community has a right 
to command, as well as to purchase, the 
service of its members. I see that right 
founded originally upon a necessity, which 
supersedes all argument. I see it estab- 
lished by usage immemorial, and admitted 
by more than a tacit assent of the legisla- 
ture. I conclude there is no remedy, in 
the nature of things, for the grievance com- 
plained of ; for, if there were, it must long 
since have been redressed. Though num- 
berless opportunities have presented them- 
selves, highly favourable to public liberty, 
no successful attempt has ever been made 
for the relief of the subject in this article. 
Yet it has been felt and complained of, 
ever since England had a navy. — The con- 
ditions, which constitute this right, must 
be taken together. Separately, they have 
little weight. It is not fair to argue, from 
any abuse in the execution, to the illegality 
of the power ; much less is a conclusion to 
be drawn from the navy to the land service. 
A seaman can never be employed but 



^ He alludes to the practice of impressing men 
for sea-service : the legality of which he allows, 
but confines it to seafaring men aln;u;.~ i:".i); r. 



3o8 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



against the enemies of his country.^ The 
only case in which the king can have a 
right to arm his subjects in general, is 
that of a foreign force being actually 
landed upon our coast. Whenever that 
case happens, no true Englishman will en- 
quire, whether the king's right to compel 
him to defend his country be the custom of 
England, or a grant of the legislature. 
Witt^ regard to the press for seamen, it 
does not follow that the symptoms may not 
be softened, although the distemper cannot 
be cured. Let bounties be increased as 
far as the public purse can support them. 2 
Still they have a limit ; and when every 
reasonable expense is incurred, it will be 
found, in fact, that the spur of the press is 
wanted to give operation to the bounty. 

Upon the whole, I never had a doubt 
about the strict right of pressing, until I 
heard that lord Mansfield had applauded 
lord Chatham for deHvering something like 
this doctrine in the House of Lords. That 
consideration staggered me not a little. 
But, upon reflection, his conduct accounts 



^ At the time when the dispute between this 
country and Spain existed, relative to Falk- 
land's Islands, for a brief account of which, see 
note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. LXXXVIIL, 
under a persuasion that war was inevitable, an 
armament took place, and press-warrants were 
issued. The legality of these, in regard to the 
city, though backed by the lord mayor, was 
questioned by Mr Wilkes and several other 
aldermen, who discharged all persons brought 
before them so impressed. In consequence of 
these discordant views of the subject, the three 
following questions were submitted, by the lord 
mayor, to the opinion of three of the most cele- 
brated counsel of the day, which, together with 
their answers, it has been thought right to sub- 
join. 

Query i. May the lords of the Admiralty of 
themselves, by virtue of their commission, or 
under the direction of the privy council, legally 
issue warrants for the impressing of seamen ? 

Q. 2. If yea, is the warrant annexed, in point 
of form, legal? 

Q. 3. Is the lord mayor compellable to back 
such warrants ? if he is, what may be the conse- 
quence of a refusal ? 

' The power of the crown to compel persons 
pursuing the employment and occupation of sea- 
men to serve the public in times of danger and 
necessity, which has its foundation in that uni- 
versal principle of the laws of all countries, that 
all private interest must give way to the public 
safety, appears to us to be well established by 



naturally for itself. He knew the doctrine 
was unpopular, and was eager to fix it 
upon the man, who is the first object of 
his fear and detestation. The cunning 
Scotchman never speaks truth without a 
fraudulent design. In council, he generally 
affects to take a moderate part. Besides 
his natural timidity, it makes part of his 
political plan, never to be known to recom- 
mend violent measures. When the guards 
are called forth to murder their fellow-sub- 
jects, it is not by the ostensible advice of 
lord Mansfield. That odious office, his 
prudence tells him, is better left to such 
men as Gower and Weymouth, as Barring- 
ton and Grafton. Lord Hillsborough 
wisely confines his firmness to the distant 
Americans. — The designs of Mansfield are 
more subtle, more effectual, and secure. — 
Who attacks the liberty of the press? — 
Lord Mansfield. — Who invades the con- 
stitutional power of juries ? — Lord Mans- 
field. — What judge ever challenged a jury- 
man, but lord Mansfield ? — Who was that 
judge, who, to save the king's brother, 

ancient and long-continued usage, frequently 
recognized ; and, in many instances, regulated 
by the legislature, and noticed at least without 
censure by courts of justice ; and we see no ob- 
jection to this power being exercised by the 
lords of the Admiralty under the authority of His 
Majesty's orders in council. 

' The form of the warrant, as well as the man- 
ner in which such warrants have been usually 
executed, appear to us to be liable to many con- 
siderable objections ; but the nature of those 
objections lead us to think it the more expedient, 
that the authority of a civil magistrate should 
interpose in the execution of them, to check and ■ 
controul the abuses to which they are liable ; 
and, therefore, although we do not think that the 
lord mayor is compellable to back the warrants, 
or liable to any punishment incase of his refusal, 
we think it right to submit it to his Lordship's 
consideration, whether it will not be more con- 
ducive to the preservation of the peacf of the 
city, and the protection of the subject from op- 
pression, if he conforms, in this instance, to what 
we understand to have been the practice of most 
of his predecessors upon the like occasion. 

Al. Wedderburn, 

J. Glynn, 
' Novejnber 2'ztid, iTjo. J. Dunning.' — Edit. 

^ This suggestion of the author was adopted 
by the cities of London, Bristol, and Edinburgh; 
and the towns of Montrose, Aberdeen, Camble- 
town, and Lynn. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



309 



affirmed that a man of the first rank and 
quality, who obtains a verdict in a suit for 
criminal conversation, is entitled to no 
greater damages than the meanest me- 
chanic ? — Lord Mansfield. — Who is it 
makes commissioners of the great seal? — 
Lord Mansfield. — Who is it forms a decree 
for those commissioners, deciding against 
lord Chatham, 1 and afterwards (finding 
himself opposed by the judges) declares in 
parhament, that he never had a doubt that 
the law was in direct opposition to that 
decree? — Lord Mansfield. — Who is he, 
that has made it the study and practice of 
his life, to undermine and alter the whole 
system of jurisprudence in the Court of 
King's Bench ? — Lord Mansfield. There 
never existed a man but himself, who an- 
swered exactly to so complicated a descrip- 
tion. Compared to these enormities, his 
original attachment to the Pretender (to 
whom his dearest brother was confidential 
secretary) is a virtue of the first magnitude. 
But the hour of impeachment will come, 
and neither he nor Grafton shall escape me. 
Now let them, make common cause agamst 
England and the House of Hanover. A 
Stuart and a Murray should sympathize 
with each other. 

When I refer to signal instances of un- 
popular opinions delivered and maintained 
by men, who may well be supposed to have 
no view but the public good, I do not mean 
to renew the discussion of such opinions. 
I should be sorry to revive the dormant 
questions of Stamp-act, Corn-bill, or Press- 
wa7'ra7it. I mean only to illustrate one 
useful proposition, which it is the intention 
of this paper to inculcate ; — That we should 
not generally reject the friendship or services 
of any tnafi, because he differs from us in a 
particular opinion. This will not appear 

/ On the Burton Pynsent estate, which was 
disputed by the relatives of the deceased with 
the earl of Chatham. See note ^, p. 3x6. — Edit. 
^ Calcraft was introduced into political notice 
by lord Holland, to whom he had been private 
secretary, and afterwards accumulated an im- 
mense private property, by becoming army 
agent. He subsequently deserted his patron, 
and strove to obtain a peerage from administra- 
tion. He died without having obtained his 



a superfluous caution ]f we observ'e the 
ordinary condact of mankind. In public 
affairs, there is the least chance of a perfect 
concurrence of sentiment or inclination. 
Yet every man is able to contribute some- 
thing to the common stock, and no man's 
contribution should be rejected. If indi- 
viduals have no virtues, their vices may be 
of use to us. I care not with what prin- 
ciple the new-born patriot is animated, if 
the measures he supports are beneficial to 
the community. The nation is interested 
in his conduct. His motives are his own. 
The properties of a patriot are perishable 
in the individual, but there is a quick suc- 
cession of subjects, and the breed is worth 
preserving.- — The spirit of the Americans 
may be an useful example to us . Our dogs 
and horses are only English upon English 
ground ; but patriotism, it seems, may be 
improved by transplanting. — I will not re- 
ject a bill, which tends to confine parlia- 
mentary privilege within reasonable bounds, 
though it should be stolen from the House 
of Cavendish, and introduced by Mr Ons- 
low. The features of the infant are a proof 
of the descent, and vindicate the noble birth 
from the baseness of the adoption. — I will- 
ingly accept of a sarcasm from Colonel 
Barrd, or a simile from Mr Burke. Even 
the silent vote of Mr Calcraft is worth 
reckoning in a division. — What though he 
riots in the plunder of the army, and has 
only determined to be a patriot when he 
could not be a peer ? 2 Let us profit by 
the assistance of such men, while they are 
with us, and place them, if it be possible, 
in the post of danger, to prevent desertion. 
The wary Wedderburne, the pompous 
Suffolk,^ never threw away the scabbard, 
nor ever went upon a forlorn hope. They 
always treated the king's servants as men, 



object. One of his mistresses was the celebrated 
George Ann Bellamy. — Edit. 

^ In allusion to his Lordship's manner. Yet it 
must also be recollected that beheaded the rene- 
gado Whigs who deserted to the ministry on the 
death of George Grenville. See MiscellaneoLis 
Letters, Nos. XCVL and XCVIL, in which 
his Lordship's conduct is reprobated in very 
severe terms, particularly so in the latter. — 
Edit. 



3IO 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



with whom, some time or other, they 

might possibly be in friendship. When 

a man who stands forth for the pubhc has 
gone that length, from which there is no 
practicable retreat, — when he has given 
that kind of personal offence, which a pious 
monarch never pardons, I then begin to 
think him in earnest, and that he never 
will have occasion to solicit the forgiveness 
of his country. — But instances of a deter- 
mination so entire and unreserved are 
rarely met with. Let us take mankind as 
they are. Let us distribute the virtues and 
abiUties of individuals according to the 
offices they affect, and when they quit the 
service, let us endeavour to supply their 
places with better men than we have lost. 
In this country, there are always candidates 
enough for popular favour. The temple of 
fame is the shortest passage to riches and 
preferment. 

Above all things, let me guard my coun- 
trymen against the meanness and folly of 
accepting of a trifling or moderate com- 
pensation for extraordinary and essential 
injuries. Our enemies treat us as the cun- 
ning trader does the unskilful Indian. 
They magnify their generosity, when they 
give us baubles, of little proportionate 
value, for ivory and gold. The same 
House of Commons, who robbed the con- 
stituent body of their right of free election, 
who presumed to make a law under pre- 
tence of declaring it ; ^ who paid our good 
king's debts, without once enquiring how 
they were incurred ; who gave thanks for 
repeated murders committed at home, and 
for national infamy incurred abroad ; who 
screened lord Mansfield ; who imprisoned 

^ The Ntdlum Tempus Bill, which was passed 
in the year 1769. — Edit. 

^ For a further explanation on this subject 
see note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. XCII., 
— Edit. 

3 The letter of Scsevola here referred to oc- 
curs in the Public Advertiser of October 12, and 
is as fbllows : 



Sn 



TO JUNIUS. 



You have mistaken lord Camden's 
opinion, and changed it into as weak and mis- 
chievous a tenet as could have proceeded from 



the magistrates of the metropolis, for assert- 
ing the subject's right to the protection of 
the laws ; who erased a judicial record, and 
ordered all proceedings in a criminal suit to 
be suspended ; 2 — this very House of Com- 
mons have graciously consented, that their 
own members may be compelled to i^ay their 
debts, and that contested elections shall for 
the future be determined with some decent 
regard to the merits of the case. The event 
of the suit is of no consequence to the crown. 
While parliaments are septennial, the pur- 
chase of the sitting member or of the 
petitioner makes but the difference of a day. 
— Concessions, such as these, are of little 
moment to the sum of things ; unless it be 
to prove, that the worst of men are sensible 
of the injuries they have done us, and per- 
haps to demonstrate to us the imminent 
danger of our situation. In the shipwreck 
of the state, trifles float and are preserved ; 
while every thing solid and valuable sinks 
to the bottom, and is lost for ever. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER LX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 15 October, 1771. 

I AM convinced that Junius is in- 
capable of wilfully misrepresenting any 
man's opinion, and that his inclination 
leads him to treat lord Camden with par- 
ticular candour and respect. The doctrine 
attributed to him by Junius, as far as it 
goes, corresponds with that stated by your 
correspondent SccBvola^^ who seems to me 

Scroggs or Jefferies. You have made it the 
counterpart of the ship-money doctrine. In this 
representation you follow lord Mansfield, who 
gave that colour to the argument in the House of 
Lords. The great point of difference between 
the representatioK and the ti'utit is, that the 
former makes lord Camden pronounce the king 
judge of the necessity, and the latter, viz. my 
lord Camden's real speech, makes parliament the 
judge of it, and exposes the head of the minister 
who advised the illegal act upon the plea of its 
necessity to the mercy of parliament. Lord 
Camden's opinion, which I heard him twice 
deliver in the House of Lords, was this : — That 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



311 



to make a distinction without a difference. 
Lord Cavidcn, it is agreed, did certainly 
maintain that, in the recess of parliament, 
the king (by which we all mean the king 
in council, or the executive power) might 
' suspend the operation of an act of the 
legislature ; and he founded his doctrine 
upon a supposed necessity, of which the 
king, in the first instance, must be judge. 
The Lords and Commons cannot be judges 
of it in the first instance, for they do not 
exist. — Thus far Junius. 

But, says Sccevola, lord Camden made 
parliament, and not the king, judges of the 
necessity.— That parliament may review 
the acts of ministers is unquestionable ; 
but there is a wide difference between say- 
ing that the crown has a legal power, and, 
that ministers may act at their peril. 
When we say an act is illegal, we mean 
that it is forbidden by a joint resolution of 
the three estates. How a subsequent reso- 
lution of two of those branches can make it 
legal ab initio, will require explanation. 
If it could, the consequence would be truly 
dreadful, especially in these times. There 
is no act of arbitrary power, which the king 
might not attribute to necessity, and for 
which he would not be secure of obtaining 
the approbation of his prostituted Lords 
and Commons. If lord Camden admits 
that the subsequent sanction of parliament 
was necessary to make the proclamation 
legal, why did he so obstinately oppose the 
bill, which was soon after brought in, for 
indemnifying all those persons who had 
acted under it? — If that bill had not been 
passed, I am ready to maintain, in direct 
contradiction to lord Camden's doctrine 
(taken as SccBvola states it), that a litigious 
exporter of corn, who had suffered in his 



' if the king should, in the recess of parliament, 
issue a proclamation, directing a step to be taken 
flat against a subsisting law, and at the next 
meeting of parliament, the step should appear 
to the?)! to have been necessary for the good of 
the state, their declaration of that necessity 
would operate as a retrospect, so as to make the 
act legal ab initio' — (which is an idea counten- 
anced by Mr Locke). 

That this was the scope and tenor of the noble 
lord'.s argument, I appeal to himself and all that 



property in consequence of the proclama- 
tion, might have laid his action against the 
custom-house officers, and would infallibly 
have recovered damages. No jury could 
refuse them ; and if I, who am by no 
means litigious, had been so injured, I 
would assuredly have instituted a suit in 
Westminster-hall, on purpose to try the 
question of right. I would have done it 
upon a principle of defiance of the pre- 
tended power of either or both Houses to 
make declarations inconsistent with law, 
and I have no doubt that, with an act of 
parhament on my side, I should have been 
too strong for them all. This is the way 
in which an Englishman should speak 
and act, and not suffer dangerous pre- 
cedents to be established, because the cir- 
cumstances are favourable or palhating. 

With regard to lord Camden, the truth 
is, that he inadvertently over-shot himself, 
as appears plainly by that unguarded men- 
tion of a tyranny of foi'ty days, which I 
myself heard. Instead of asserting that the 
proclamation was legal, he should have 
said, ' My Lords, I know the proclamation 
was illegal, but I advised it because it was 
indispensably necessary to save the king- 
dom from famine, and I submit myself to 
the justice and mercy of my country.' 

Such language as this would have been 
manly, rational, and consistent :— not unfit 
for a lawyer, and every way worthy of a 
great man . 

PHILO JUNIUS. 

P. S. If Sc(Bvola should think proper to 
write again upon this subject, I beg of him 
to give me a direct answer, that is, a plain 
affirmative or negative, to the following 
questions : — In the interval between the 
pubhshing such a proclamation (or order of 

heard him. — Whether the opinion, so restored, 
be or be not erroneous in point of law, is a 
question foreign to this letter, which has no other 
view but to convince the public, that his Lord- 
ship never delivered that pernicious and foolish 
opinion which Junius, by mistake, and lord 
Mansfield, by the basest misrepresentation, has 
imputed to him. 

SC^VOLA. 

For JuNius's opinion of this writer, see the 
Note to Private Letter, No. 47. — Edit. 



312 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



council) as that in question, and its receiv- 
ing the sanction of the two Houses, of 
what nature is it — is it legal or illegal ; or 
is it neither one nor the other ?— I mean to 
be candid, and will point out to him the 
consequence of his answer either way. — If 
it be legal, it wants no farther sanction. If 
it be illegal, the subject is not bound to 
obey it, consequently it is a useless, nuga- 
tory act, even as to its declared purpose. 

^ The following extract of a subsequent letter 
from ScaDvola, inserted in the Public Advertiser, 
October 24, 1771, proves sufficiently that this 
writer at last admitted lord Camden to have 
maintained an erroneous doctrine. 

' My lord Camden certainly thought the vote 
of the two Houses in this case equivalent to a 
parliamentary declaration : he also thought such 
declaration made the act (illegal before) legal ab 
initio. Now as lord Camden is no patron of 
mine, I am free to declare, that I am satisfied he 
was wrong in both those points on the foot of 
strict law ; that he was wrong upon his convic- 
tion Junius himself has once admitted ; and that 
he was wrong upon fair and rational, though not 
satisfactory, grounds, will appear to every man 
of good understanding. The shade between his 
erroneous doctrine and the true one, being in 
sense and reason hardly distinguishable ; both 
doctrines admit the proclamation to be illegal, 
and at the minister's peril till the meeting of 
parliament. Both doctrines admit the two 
Houses of Parliament (in this or that mode) sole 
judges of the necessity. Both doctrines agree 
in exposing the minister to impeachment, if the 
two Houses of Parliament should decide against 
his plea of necessity. Whether upon the declar- 
ation of necessity the act becomes good in law 
ab initio, or not, is the only question. Locke 
(no Tory) holds the affirmative. The law, in my 
opinion, strictly taken, is in the negative ; for I 
conceive that nothing but an indemnity-bill 
could justify the crown for having superseded a 
positive act of parliament.' '' .' 

To these remarks Junius, on the following 
day, puts the subjoined questions : — 

ist. ' In what part of Mr Locke's writings Is it 
maintained that the king may suspend an act of 
parliament, and that the subsequent approbation 
of the two Houses makes the suspension legal ab 
iftitio, or to that effect? 

2nd. ' Does Scaevola think that an act of the 
whole legislature is as easily obtained and com- 
pleted, as a vote of the Lords or Commons ? ' — 
The rest is a dispute about words not worth con- 
tinuing. — Edit. 

^ The letter of Zeno here referred to occurs in 
the Public Advertiser, dated October 15, 1771, 
and is addressed ' To Junius, alias Edmund the 
Jesuit of St Omer's.' This writer, however, was 
not the only one of the same period who erred in 
attributing the Letters of Junius to Mr Burke. 
See Preliminary Essay, in which the reasons for 



Before the meeting of parliament, the whole 
mischief, which it means to prevent, will 
have been completed. 2 



LETTER LXI. 

TO ZENO. 3 

17 October, 



Sir, 17 uctober, 1771. 

The sophistry of your letter in 



disbelieving that gentleman to have been the 
author of them, are more particularly given. 

As Junius thought Zeno's letter worthy of a 
reply, the reader may not think it unworthy of a 
perusal. It is as follows : 

Sir, 

Your letter of the 8th is a greater 
miracle than any you have hitherto produced. 
I do not mean in its argument, language, and 
arrangement. In these particulars you have 
been invested with a creative power, and what- 
ever you are pleased to bring forth, is not for us 
to approve, but to admire : but, sir, your letter 
of the 8th is not written in the single spirit of 
calumny ; you have now turned the efforts which 
formerly were exerted in creating divisions 
amongst the good, to cement those which never 
fall to arise amongst the bad. I have no objec- 
tion to your success in this undertaking. Let the 
fathers of your church and the sons of the city 
unite. Let them club their arts and their powers. 
Let Wilkes enjoy his fertility In expedients, he 
will have need for it all. But neither that fer- 
tility, the republican firmness of Sawbridge, no, 
nor the youth, spirit, and graces of Townshend, 
will avail to overturn the constitution, or even 
procure to them or to you the ultimate object of 
your desires — a little money. 

Yet, Sir, why, in a letter professedly written 
to reconcile the patriots of the city, do you make 
a digression to abuse lord Mansfield ? Is it be- 
cause of the diametrical opposition of his cha- 
racter to theirs ? Certainly It must be so ; and 
Junius is less a fool than I believed him. No- 
thing more likely to reconcile rogues who rail at 
each other, than railing at honest men. If your 
dogs are of the true breed, they v/ill leave off 
worrying one another, and join in the cry against 
the common enemy. 

It is on the subject of this abu.se that I take 
the liberty to address the mighty Junius. 

This phosnlx of politicians and of reasoners 
tells the public, that 'he never had a doubt 
about the strict right of pressing, till he knew 
lord Mansfield was of the same opinion. That 
indeed staggered him not a little; ' and to be sure 
it was a staggering consideration : for who is to 
learn that lord Mansfield Is utterly ignorant of 
the law? and that his judgment is avowedly so 
weak and perverse, that a wise politician (I mean 
so very wise a politician as Junius) will examine 
no further, but at once conclude that proposition 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



313 



defence of lord Mansfield is adapted to the 
character you defend. But lord Mansfield 

in law to be false, which lord IMansfield holds to 
be true. 

Sir, when you are only puerile, blundering, 
inconsistent, and absurd, I treat you as you de- 
serve, with ridicule and contempt. But when 
you assert positive falsehoods, the mildest usage 
3'ou can expect, is to have them crammed down 
the foul throat from which they issued. Of this 
nature are the questions you make, and the 
answers you are pleased to give to yourself, in 
relation to lord Mansfield. So many infamous 
lies as these answers contain, were never crowded 
together before— not even by Junius. You in- 
sinuate (and you dare but insinuate) that lord 
Mansfield was the secret adviser of sending out 
the guards when the affair of St George's Fields 
happened. That his Lordship was in any shape 
ostensibly or otherwise concerned in that matter, 
that he knew of it till days after it happened, is 
a lie of the first magnitude ; and I dare you to 
bring even the shadow of proof of your infamous 
assertion. 

It is also a lie that lord Mansfield attacks the 
liberty of the press. He has endeavoured, in- 
deed, by legal and constitutional methods, to 
restrain the abuse of that liberty, and in doing 
so he has shown himself a good citizen. Are 
you a politician, and ignorant that the abuse of 
the best things makes them degenerate into the 
worst ? Are you a pretender to reason, and 
ignorant that the abuse of a valuable privilege is 
the certain mean to lose it? Are not you a public 
defamer of every respectable character in the 
nation? Have not you carried the licence of the 
press beyond the bounds not only of decency and 
humanity, but even of human conception ? And 
dare you complain that its liberty is attacked? 
Your reliance on the Ignorance of those to whom 
you write must be great Indeed, when you dare 
affirm a fact which Is contradicted and proved a 
He by the very affirmation of its truth. 

Nor Is it less false, that lord Mansfield invades 
the constitutional power of juries. I refer all 
who are not willing to believe a He upon the 
credit of a common liar, to the letters of Phile- 
leutherus Angllcanus, and those under the sig- 
nature of A Candid Enquirer, for Information on 
this subject. The letters are In the Public 
Advertisers of November and December last ; 
and from them, all who are able to form a judg- 
ment on a question of law, will see it clearly 
demonstrated, that lord Mansfield's opinion 
with respect to the power of juries, Is no less 
the law of the land, than the advantage of the 
subject. 

Your question relating to lord Mansfield's 
challenging a juryman, I confess I do not tuider- 
stand, neither do I know to what It alludes ; a 
charge of that nature ought to have been accom- 
panied with circumstances of time, place, and 
occasion. When, where, and on what account 
was this done ? Answer me these questions, and 
I pledge myself to the public, that I shall prove, 



is a man of form, and seldom in his be- 
haviour transgresses the rules of decorum. 



to the conviction of every reasonable man, that 
if it was so done, it was legally done. 

Your next accusation shows you no less void 
of judgment and consistency than of justice and 
truth. You accuse lord Mansfield to the public, 
for saying a lord Is entitled to no greater damages 
in a suit for the debauching of his wife, than a 
mechanic. Lord Mansfield did say, that in an 
action of damages for criminal conversation, the 
law did not consider the rank of the person In- 
jured ; and in this he uttered not only the dic- 
tates of law, but the dictates of common sense 
and humanity, neither of which you seem to 
understand. Had lord Mansfield said that the 
law did not consider the rank of the injuring 
person, it might have been argued that he meant 
to screen the king's brother : but the difi'erence 
between light and darkness is not greater than 
between this proposition and the proposition he 
maintained. None but an Irish understanding 
could possibly take the change, or suppose them 
convertible propositions. But can you, Junius, 
seriously make your court to the people, by tell- 
ing them there is a wide dlff"erence between the 
crime of debauching the wife of a lord, and one 
of their own ? You were bred at St Omer's. 
You were destined for a church, not that Indeed 
of which Savile, &c., are the fathers ; but how- 
ever a church which requires some reading. 
Reading the Scriptures, It is true, is forbid by 
3^our canons ; but surely you have heard of the 
prophet Nathan's address to David on a subject 
of this nature? The prophet, worse than lord 
Mansfield, thought that debauching the wife of 
a poor man was a greater crime than debauching 
the wife of a lord ; for this plain and humane 
reason, that a poor man's wife was his all, his 
only comfort and consolation, whereas a rich 
man had many others ; yet Junius, the popular 
Junius, tells the people plainly, that debauching 
one of their wives is nothing in c niparlson of 
lying with a lord's, and arraigns tlie upright and 
discerning judge, who says that the injury to the 
husband Is in both cases equal. 

Who makes commissioners of the great seal ? 
Lord Mansfield. — Indeed ; — I thought that 
power had only resided In the king. To see how 
plain men may mistake ! If you, Junius, by 
making commissioners, mean advising the king 
to make commissioners, I understand you. The 
expression is rather inaccurate, but that one is 
often obliged to pass over in Junius. In my 
turn give me leave to ask you a question. Who 
so proper to advise his Majesty in the choice of 
a law officer as lord Mansfield ? 

But lord Mansfield not only made the commis- 
sioners of the great seal : he also framed their 
decree, and then disavowed the decree of his own 
framing in the House of Peers. This is an 
absurd and an improbable lie. It Is absurd and 
Improbable to suppose lord Mansfield framed a 
decree for three judges very capable to frame 
one themselves. It is more absurd to suppose 



314 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



I shall imitate his Lordship's good man- 
ners, and leave you in full possession of his 
principles. I will not call you /iar, Jesuit, 
or villain ; but, with all the politeness 
imaginable, perhaps I may prove you so. 

Like other fair pleaders in lord Matis- 
field's school of justice, you answer Junius 
by misquoting his words, and misstating 
his propositions. If I am candid enough to 
admit that this is the very logic taught at 
St Omer's, you will readily allow that it is 
the constant practice in the court of King's 
Bench. — Junius does not say, that he never 
had a doubt about the strict right of press- 
ing, till he knew lord Mansfield was of the 
same opinion. His words are, U7itil he 



lord Mansfield would disavow the decree which 
he himself had made, in the presence of the 
three commissioners for whom he had made it, 
and who could so easily have detected his 
dupHcity. And it is a direct and public lie that 
lord Mansfield said he never had a doubt that the 
law was in direct opposition to that decree. He did 
not give an opinion in the House of Peers. He 
only stated the question ; and the decree was 
reversed on the unanimous opinion of the eight 
judges who attended. For the truth of this I 
appeal to all who were present. 

The last charge of Junius represents lord 
Mansfield making-it his study to undermine and 
alter the whole system of jurisprudence in the 
King's Bench. One would scarcely believe that 
there could be an understanding so twisted, or a 
heart so corruptly malignant, as to make that an 
article of accusation, which, fairly taken, includes 
in it the most exalted merit and virtue. If there 
be a superlatively eminent quality in lord Mans- 
field's great and deserved character, it is the un- 
remitting and unwearied efforts he constantly 
has made to rescue injured and oppressed inno- 
cence from the harpy fangs of chicane and 
quibble. The nation does him justice in this 
particular ; and all the arts and lies that have 
been employed to defame him, have never been 
able to stagger the public confidence in his judg- 
ment and integrity. The proof of this is in the 
breast of every man to whom I write ; and the 
crowd of suitors in the court where he presides, 
gives the most honourable testimony to the truth 
which I affirm, and the most palpable lie to the 
assertion of the abandoned Junius. 

And now. Sir, having answered all your 
questions, you are worth no further notice. I 
shall in my turn address a few queries to the 
public ; and I am sorry that the temper of the 
times should oblige me to recall to their memory 
things which ought to be indelibly engraven on 
the heart of every Englishman. 

By whose advice was it that his Majesty im- 
mediately on his accession to the throne made 



heard that lord Mansfield had applauded 
lord Chatham for mai?itaining that doc- 
trine in the House of Lords. It was not 
the accidental concurrence of lord Mans- 
field's opinion, but the suspicious applause 
given by a cunning Scotchman to the man 
he detests, that raised and justified a doubt 
in the mind of Junius. The question is 
not, whether lord Mansfield be a man of 
learning and abilities (which Junius has 
never disputed), but whether or no he 
abuses and misapplies his talents. 

Junius did 7tot say that lord Mansfield 
had advised the calling out the guards. 
On the contrary, his plain meaning is, that 
he left that odious office to men less cun- 
ning than himself. — Whether lord Mans- 



the judges places for life, thereby rendering them 
independent on king or minister? Lord Mans- 
field. — When lord Chatham and lord Camden 
attempted to revive the impious and unconstitu- 
tional doctrine of a power in the crown to dis- 
pense with the laws of the land (which was 
precisely the point on which the glorious revo- 
lution hinged, and the doctrine for maintaining 
of which James II. lost his crown) ; who stood 
in the breach, and with eloquence and argument, 
more than human, defeated the pernicious at- 
tempt? Lord Mansfield. — Who supported and 
carried through the House of Peers the bill 
called the Nullum Tempus Bill ; that law by 
which the H.inds of the people were quieted 
against apprahension of claims on the part of the 
crown ? Lord Mansfield. — To whom do we owe 
the success of the bill for restraining the privi- 
lege of parliament, of such essential service to 
the internal commerce of the nation, and espe- 
cially to that part of it which could least afford 
to lie under any disadvantage, the industrious 
shopkeeper and tradesman ? Lord Mansfield. — 
Who carried Mr Grenville's last legacy to the 
nation through the House of Peers, that bill by 
which questions of elections in the House of 
Commons are henceforth to be tried in a manner 
which will prevent the injustice supposed to have 
been done in the Middlesex election, and guard 
against the bad consequences which it was feared 
might follow from that determination? Lord 
Mansfield. 

I might add many other constitutional ques- 
tions in which lord Mansfield has ever been on 
the side of public hberty. But if what I have 
already said be not sufficient to vindicate the 
first character in the nation from the false as- 
persions of an unprincipled scribbler, I am bold 
to say, that the time is now arrived, when it is un- 
worthy of an honest man to labour for the public ; 
and the character of an Englishman, once so re- 
spectable, will no longer be known but by its 
folly and ingratitude. — Zeno. Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



31s 



field's doctrine concerning libels be or be 
not an attack upon the liberty of the press, 
is a question, which the public in general 
are very well able to determine. 1 shall 
not enter into it at present. Nor do I 
think it necessary to say much to a man, 
who had the daring confidence to say to a 
jury, ' Gentlemen, you are to bring in a 
verdict guilty or not guilty, but M^hether 
the defendant be guilty or innocent is not 
matter ior your consideration.' Clothe it in 
what language you will, this is the sum 
total of lord Mansfield's doctrine. If not, 
let Zeno show us the difference. 

But it seems, the liberty of the press may 
be abused, and the abuse of a valuable 
■privilege is the certain means to lose it. 
The frst I admit, — but let- the ab7ise be 
submitted to a jury, a sufficient and indeed 
the only legal and constitutional check 
upon the licence of the press. The second 
I flatly deny. In direct contradiction to 
lord Mansfield I affirm, that ' the abuse of 
a valuable privilege is not the certain 
means to lose it." If it w^ere, the English 
nation would have few privileges left, for 
where is the privilege that has not, at one 
time or other, been abused by individuals. 
But it is false in reason and equity, that 
particular abuses should produce a general 
forfeiture. Shall the community be de- 
prived of the protection of the laws, because 
there are robbers and murderers ? — Shall 
the community be punished, because in- 
dividuals have offended ? Lord Mansfield 
says so, consistently enough with his prin- 
ciples, but I wonder to find him so exphcit. 
Yet, for one concession, however extorted, 
I confess myself obliged to him. — The 

■■• On a motion made in the House of Commons 
Nov. 27, 1770, by the Hon. Mr Phipps, for 
leave to bring in a bill to amend the act of Wil- 
liam the I'hird, which empowers the attorney- 
general to file informations ex officio, the late 
lord, then I\Ir Thurlow, solicitor-general, thus 
defended lord Mansfield from the charge here 
brought against him by Junius : — ' Indeed, if a 
juryman has been rejected without a challenge 
from the parties, there is room for clamour. 
Such an act is highly criminal. No man is able, 
no honest man would wish to defend it. But let 
us not be rash in passing sentence. Let the fact 



liberty of the press is, after all, a valuable 
privilege. I agree with him most heartily, 
and will defend it against him. 

You ask me. What juryman was chal- 
lenged by lord Mansfield ? — I tell you his 
name was Benson. When his name was 
called, lord Mansfield ordered the clerk to 
pass him by. As for his reasons, you may 
ask himself, for he assigned none.^ But I 
can tell you what all men thought of it. 
This Benson ^ had been refractory upon a 
former jury, and would not accept of the 
law as delivered by lord Mansfield, but had 
the impudence to pretend to think for him- 
self. — But you it seems, honest Zeno, know 
nothing of the matter ! You never read 
JUNius's letter to your patron ! You never 
heard of the intended instructions from the 
city to impeach lord Mansfield ! — Yoix 
never heard by what dexterity of Mr 
Paterson that measure was prevented ! ^ 
How wonderfully ill some people are in- 
formed. 

Junius did never affirm that the crime 
of seducing the wife of a mechanic or a 
peer, is not the same, taken in a moral or 
religious view. What he affirmed, in con- 
tradiction to the levelling principle so lately 
adopted by lord Mansfield, was, that the 
damages should be proportioned to the rank 
and fortune of the parties ; and for this 
plain reason (admitted by ever}'- other 
judge that ever sat in Westminster Hall) ; 
because, what is a compensation or penalty 
to one man, is none to another. The 
sophistical distinction 3'ou' attempt to draw 
between the person injured and the per- 
son injuring is Mansfield all over. If you 
can once establish the proposition that the 



be well authenticated, before we condemn. 
Rumour is not a sufficient ground for proceeding. 
As we found it a liar in other articles, we have 
this reason to doubt its veracity ; though I fre- 
quent Westminster Hall, I know nothing of it ; 
but I must confess that I cannot give it the least 
credit. The great judge who is suspected, was 
incapable of such an action.' — Edit. 

^ See Letter LXIII. — Edit. 

3 Jvlr Paterson was one of the common council 
for the ward of Farringdon Within, and took 
an active part in favour of government. — 
Edit. 



3i6 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



inj ured party is not entitled to receive large 
damages, it follows pretty plainly that the 
party injuring should not be compelled to 
pay them ; consequently the king's brother 
is effectually screened by lord Mansfield' s 
doctrine. Your reference to Nathan and 
David comes naturally in aid of your 
patron's professed system of jurisprudence. 
He is fond of introducing into the Court of 
Kings Bench any law that contradicts or 
excludes the common law of England ; 
whether it be canon, civil, jus gentium, or 
Levitical. But, Sir, the Bible is the code 
of our religious faith, not of our municipal 
jurisprudence : and though it was the plea- 
sure of God to inflict a particular punish- 
ment upon David's crime (taken as a breach 
of his divine commands) and to send his 
prophet to denounce it, an English jury 
have nothing to do either with David or the 
prophet. They consider the crime, only as 
it is a breach of order, an injury to an indi- 
vidual, and an offence to society, and they 
judge of it by certain positive rules of law, 
or by the practice of their ancestors. Upon 
the whole, the man after God's own heart 
is much indebted to you for comparing him 
to the duke of Cumberland. That his 
Royal Highness may be the man after lord 
Mansfield's own heart seems much more 
probable, and you I think, Mr Zeno, might 
succeed tolerably well in the character of 
Nathan. The evil deity, the prophet, and 
the royal sinner would be very proper com- 
pany for one another. 

You say lord Mansfield did not make the 
commissioners of the great seal,i and that 
he only advised the king to appoint. I 
believe Junius meant no more, and the 
distinction is hardly worth disputing. 

You say he did not deliver an opinion 
upon lord Chatham's appeal. — I affirm that 
he did, directly in favour of the appeal.^ 
This is a point of fact, to be determined by 



^ It has been already observed that the great 
seal was put in commission upon the death of 
Charles Yorke, who cut his throat through po- 
litical chagrin. Lord Mansfield was upon this 
occasion made speaker of the House of Lords, 
and received the fees, which were supposed to 
amount to ^5000 per annum. — Edit. 



evidence only. But you assign no reason 
for his supposed silence, nor for his desiring 
a conference with the judges the day before. 
Was not all Westminster Hall convinced 
that he did it with a view to puzzle them 
with some perplexing question, and in hopes 
of bringing some of them over to him ?— 
You say the commissioners were very 
capable of framing a decree for themselves. 
By the fact, it only appears, that they were 
capable of framing an illegal one, which, I 
apprehend, is not much to the credit either 
of their learning or integrity. 

We are both agreed that lord Ma^tsfield 
has incessantly laboured to introduce new 
modes of proceeding in the court where he 
presides ; hxityou attribute it to an honest 
zeal in behalf of innocence oppressed by 
quibble and chicane. / say that he has in- 
troduced new law too, and removed the 
landmarks established by former decisions. 
/ say that his view is to change a court of 
common law into a court of equity, and 
to bring every thing within the arbitrium 
of a prcEtorian court. The public must 
determine between us. But noio for his 
merits. First then, the establishment of 
the judges in their places for life (which 
you tell us was advised by lord Mansfield) 
was a concession merely to catch the 
people. It bore the appearance of a 
royal bounty, but had nothing real in it. 
The judges were already for life, excepting 
in the case of a demise. Your boasted bill 
only provides tha^t it shall not be in the 
power of the king's successor to remove 
them. At the best therefore it is only a 
legacy, not a gift on the part of his present 
Majesty, since for himself he gives up 
nothing. — That he did oppose lord Camden 
and lord Northington upon the proclama- 
tion against the exportation of corn, is most 
true, and with great ability. With his 
talents, and taking the right side of so 



^ Sir Wm Pynsent had bequeathed an estate 
to lord Chatham, which bequest was controvert- 
ed by his immediate heirs. The chancellorship, 
then in commission, was appealed to. Lord 
Chatham lost his cause by the decision of the 
commissioners ; but gained it upon a further 
appeal to the House of Lords, — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



317 



clear a question, it was impossible to speak 
ill. — His motives are not so easily pene- 
trated. They, who are acquainted with the 
state of pontics at that period, will judge 
of them somewhat differently from Zeno. 
Of the popular bills, which you say- he sup- 
ported in the House of Lords, the most 
material is unquestionably that of Mr 
Grenville, for deciding contested elections. 
But I should be glad to know upon what 
possible pretence any member of the Upper 
House could oppose such a bill, after it had 
passed the House of Commons f — I do not 
pretend to know what share he had in pro- 
moting the other two bills, but I am ready 
to give him all the credit you desire. Still 
you will find that a whole life of deliberate 
iniquity is ill atoned for by doing now and 



^ The letter thus subscribed appeared in the 
Public Advertiser, Oct. 16, 1771, and deserves a 
perusal, as it was deemed entitled to a reply. 

TO JUNIUS. 
Sir, 

There is a bigotry in politics as well as 
in religion. Precepts, which, on examination, we 
should have found to be erroneous, are often im- 
plicitly received by us, because we have formed 
an opinion of the integrity and sound judgment 
of tliose by whom they were penned ; but the 
majority of the people are biassed by those prin- 
ciples entirely which they have imbibed in their 
j'outh, and pay deference to those persons and 
things which their parents instructed them to re- 
vere. The greater, therefore, the reputation of 
a writer, the stricter guard I must keep over my 
belief, for the easier he might lead my judgment 
astrajr. I even think it my duty, when such a 
writer errs, to sound the alann ; lest my fellow- 
citizens be unwarily misled. — Junius is their 
favourite guide ; but shall they follow him blind- 
fold, because he affirms it to be dark ? No, let 
them walk with their eyes open, and see if there 
be not a ray of light. — Credulity and supersti- 
tious veneration have ever held in darkness the 
human mmd. It was not till the Pope and his 
priests had forfeited their character of holiness 
and infallibility that the Reformation took place, 
and mankind began to think for themselves ; the 
Scriptures began to be understood in their origin- 
al meaning, though many to this day interpret 
them, not as they have considered them in their 
own minds, but as, by their priests or their 
parents, they are taught to believe. It was not 
till the prerogative of the crown was abused by 
the house of Stuart that the revolution succeeded 
in the government of Britain. Men then lost 
that fear and reverence with which they used to 
behold their king ; and they began to imagine it 
would be better for the common-weal, that his 



then a laudable action upon a mixed or 
doubtful principle. — If it be unworthy of 
him, thus ungratefully treated, to labour 
any longer for the public, in God's name 
let him retire. His brother's patron 
(whose health he once was an.xious for) is 
dead, but the son of that unfortunate 
prince survives, and, I dare say, will be 
ready to receive him. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER LXII. 



TO AN ADVOCATE IN THE CAUSE OF THE 
PEOPLE.l 

Sir, 18 October, 1771. 

You do not treat Junius fairly. 

power and prerogative were curtailed. The 
authority of the monarchical law-writers became 
also disregarded : and customs, which, before 
that period, were peaceably received as the laws 
of the land, were then found to be illegal and in- 
consistent with the rights of a free man. — Our 
minds are becoming still daily more enlightened ; 
general warrants have lately been abolished as 
illegal ; and you, Junius, have publicly arraign- 
ed the conduct of our chief magistrate, with a 
freedom hitherto unknown. A few years ago a 
jury of our own countrjnnen would have perused 
your sentiments of their king, with almost the 
same horror and detestation as they would have 
read blasphemy against their God. You have 
indeed. Sir, been the greatest reformer of our 
political creed, and I revere you for your enlarg- 
ed mind. But, though in general I assent to the 
articles of your faith, I cannot entirely agree 
with you in the opinions delivered to us in 3'our 
letter of the 8th of this month. What you have 
there written on the subject of press warrants, 
does not become your pen. I wish. Sir, for your 
own honour, you would give that matter a 
second consideration. You say, ' I see the right 
(of pressing men into the sea service) founded 
originally upon necessity, which supersedes all 
argument. I see it established by usage imme- 
morial, and admitted by more than a tacit assent 
of the legislature. I conclude there is no remedy, 
in the nature of things, for the grievance com- 
plained of; for, if there were, it must long since 

have been redressed.' Now really. Sir, this 

conclusion is more like the argument of a bigot- 
ed priest of the church of Rome, than the sound 
reasoning of a Protestant divine. You might as 
well have told us to reverence the Pope, to 
believe in transubstantiation, and to kneel to all 
the images of the Popish samts ; because if it 
were not proper so to do, our ancestors would 
not have done so before us. Would you not 
have been laughed at if, in the debate on the le- 



3i8 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



You would not have condemned him so 
hastily, if you had ever read "Judge Foster s 
argument upon the legality of pressing sea- 
men. A man who has not read that argu- 
ment, is not qualifiijd to speak accurately 
upon the subject. In answer to strong 
facts and fair reasoning, you produce 
nothing but a vague comparison between 
two things, which had little or no resem- 
blance to each other. General warra?its, 
it is true, had been often issued, but they 
had never been regularly questioned or 
resisted, until the case of Mr Wilkes. He 
brought them to trial, and the moment they 
were tried, they were declared illegal. 
This is not the case oi press warrants. 
They have been complained of, questioned, 
and resisted in a thousand instances ; but 
still the legislature have never interposed, 
nor has there ever been a formal decision 
against them in any of the superior courts. 
On the contrary, they have been frequently 
recognized and admitted by parliament, 
and there are judicial opinions given in 
their favour, by judges of the first character. 
Under the various circumstances, stated by 
Junius, he has a right to conclude, for 
himself, that there is no remedy. If you 
have a good one to propose, you may 
depend upon the assistance and applause of 



gality of general warrants, you had declared 
there was no remedy against them, because, if 
there were, they must long since have been de- 
clared illegal ? Were not general warrants as 
much established, by usage immemorial, as is 
the arbitrary custom of pressing men ? and were 
they not as anciently admitted by the tacit 
assent of the legislature ? Surely, Sir, if you had 
been seriously inclined to investigate the truth, 
you would have delivered yourself in a more ra- 
tional style. 

A man of your fertile imagination could easily 
have thought of a remedy against the grievance 
complained of, in the custom of pressing men. 
You could have shown us, that a body of sea- 
man, kept in constant pay, was much more ne- 
cessary for the defence of this country than a 
standing army. You could, during the peace, 
have found employment for those seamen in the 
dock yards, in the herring fishery, in the custom- 
house cutters, and in fully manning those in- 
active men of war now most improperly called 
guard-ships, though originally intended to guard 
our isle. In short. Sir, if those seamen were to 
do nothing during the peace, they would still be 
more requisite than aii army in peace only 



Junius. The magistrate who guards the 
liberty of the individual, deserves to be 
commended. But let him remember that 
it is also his duty to provide for, or at least 
not to hazard, the safety of the com- 
munity. If, in the case of a foreign war, 
and the expectation of an invasion, you 
would rather keep your fleet in harbour, 
than man it by pressing seamen, who refuse 
the bounty, I have done. 

You talk of disbanding the army with 
wonderful ease and indifference. If a 
wiser man held such language, I should be 
apt to suspect his sincerity. 

As for keeping up a much greater number 
of seamen in time of peace, it is not to be 
done. You will oppress the merchant, you 
will distress trade, and destroy the nursery 
of your seamen. He must be a miserable 
statesman, who voluntarily, by the same 
act, increases the public expense, and less- 
ens the means of supporting it. 

PHILO JUNIUS. 



LETTER LXIII. 

22 October, lyji. 
A FRIEND of Junius desires it may 
be observed (in answer to A Barrister at 
Law),'^ 



employed to add force to the prerogative of the 
crown. But Junius was not in earnest. He is 
perhaps one of our discarded ministers (or rather 
one of their secretaries, for ministers rarely 
write so well). He expects to be employed 
again ; and as he may then have occasion for 
men, suddenly to put a fleet to sea, he must i^ot 
deliver his opinion against press warrants ; if it 
were received, he might hereafter find a diffi- 
culty to equip his fleet; the remedy, though 
found by him, being not yet applied to the 
grievance of which the nation would complain. 
An Advocate in thk cause of the People. 

^ The letter here referred to appeared in the 
Public Advertiser of Oct. 19, 1771, and is as fol- 
lows : 

Lord Mansfield defended against Junius 
and his party. 

Junius derives importance from every reply. 
His pride is flattered by the number of his oppo- 
nents ; and even detection itself is a triumph to 
a man who has no honour, no fame to lose. In 
the absence of all character, he enjoys the secur- 
ity which others owe to a reputation invulner- 
able on every side : and he is singularly inde- 
pendent of rebuke, under the unparalleled 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



319 



1°. That the fact of lord Mansfield's hav- 
ing ordered a juryman to be passed by 



depravity of his mind. — But there are charges 
which require an answer, notwithstanding the 
discredit which is annexed to them, on account 
of the quarter from which they come. Junius is 
not more wicked than some of his readers are 
credulous : and this consideration was the sole 
inducement to the following dispassionate an- 
swer to his late attack upon a great law lord, 
who is an ornament to the present age. 

The charge that his Lordship challenged a 
juror, is at once impossible and absurd. It an- 
swers itself, and bears the lie on its face. — But 
Junius may found his accusation upon a misre- 
presented fact : A juryman, about fifteen years 
ago, for a suspicion conceived upon something 
which happened in court, was passed bj' with 
the acuqiescence and consent of the coun- 
sel on both sides. Neither of the parties com- 
plained. A factious attorney, to gain conse- 
quence to himself, began to mutter. He met 
with no encouragement, and he dropt the affair. 
Junius ought to know, that jurors are passed by, 
with the acquiescence of both parties, without a 
formal challenge. Without the consent of both, 
it cannot be done. Such a measure would be a 
fHis-trial ; and, upon motion, would be set aside 
of course by the court. But when the parties 
are satisfied, nobody else has any right to com- 
plain. 

His Lordship has destroyed the liberty of the 
press: Junius, in this charge, gives himself the 
lie. No writer ever used the liberty of the press 
with such unrestrained freedom as himself: no 
times were ever so much marked as the present, 
with public scurrility and defamation. A reply 
to the charge is in evety column of every paper. 
They are the most dangerous enemies who 
abuse the Hberty of the press like Junius and 
his adherents. 

His Lordship, not content with destroying ehc 
liberty of the press, has, if we believe Junius, 
restrained the power of juries. — Juries, it has 
never yet been doubted, have a power of doing 
either right or wrong, according to their will and 
pleasure. The only question is, by what rules 
should they govern themselves, if they mean to 
do right. Till the year 1730, there was some 
doubt, whether the construction of a libel was 
not a question of law ; but in Franklin's trial, 
the rule, which has been invariably ever since 
followed, was admitted by lord Hardwick, then 
attorney-general, agreed to by eminent counsel 
on the other side, and adopted by the court. 
Lord lilansfield made a late opinion of the court 
very public, undoubtedly with a view that it 
should be taken up constitutionally in parlia- 
ment, by those who pretended to differ from 
him in opinion, by a bill, in the progress of 
which the matter might be discussed, with the 
assistance of the judges. It was in this light un- 
derstood ; and the most considerable part of 
those who differed frofti t!iat opinion in the 
Housa of Commons being clear, that there was 



(which poor Zeno never heard of) is now 
formally admitted. When Mr Benson's 



no colour for a declaratory law, moved for a bill to 
make a law for the future, which w;is rejected. 
The enormous crime trumped up by Junius and 
I his party then is, that a judge tells the jury 
I what, in his opinion, the law is, and leaves them 
! afterwards to do as they please, without interpo- 
sition. If he thinks his opinion right, as he most 
certaini}' does, it is not in his power to do other- 
wise ; and he must repeat the same conduct 
whenever a similar case comes before him. 

Junius next affirms, that ' to save the king's 
brother, lord Mansfield declared that, in a ver- 
dict for criminal conversation, a man of the first 
quality is entitled to no greater damages than the 
meanest mechanic' — I have talked with some 
I who attended the trial, I have read the spurious 
accounts of it in print. We know how falsely and 
I ignorantly such notes are taken, even when the 
writers mean no harm. They are generally un- 
intelligible till they are corrected by the persons 
concerned. But I suspect, that malice joined 
issue with blunder, in what is made lord Mans- 
field's opinion. It is full of nonsense, contradic- 
tory, and manifestly imperfect. Much depends 
upon a word or two, a restriction or a qualifica- 
tion. The published opinion makes lord Mans- 
field tell the jury that the measure of damages 
must be formed, f^rom all the circumstances of the 
case taken together. In another place, it makes 
him state many of the circumstances and say, 
they are not at all material without any restric- 
tion or qualification. But the scope and occa- 
j sion of the direction are very plain, in whatever 

words the direction itself was expressed. 

I A very eminent and able counsel had, with a 

j torrent of eloquence, applied to the passions of 

' the jury. He laboured, with great art and ad- 

! dress, to carry them, it is impossible to say 

I where, merely on account of the rank and situ- 

1 ation of the parties. The duke of York, he in- 

I formed the jury, recovered one hundred thousand 

pounds against a man for calling him a Papist, 

I. which was no additional damage to his charac- 

I ter, for all England knew him to be actually a 

! Papist. If therefore, continued the counsel, the 

I king's brother recovered so much, the rule should 

be reciprocal, and the defendant ought to pay 

much more, as the injury was greater. The 

learned counsel judiciously passed over the many 

cases in England — of a duke of Norfolk, a duke 

of Beaufort, a duke of Grafton, and many other 

' peers, who had recovered moderate damages 

' from men of fortune. But he rested on an Irish 

! case, of which he stated no circumstances, where 

the rule was to give such damages as should ruin 

I the defendant. He, therefore, contended for an 

1 exorbitant verdict, by way of punishment. 

{ It was the indispensable duty of the judge 

I to extricate the matter from the passions of the 

! jury, worked up and biassed by inflammatory^ 

; eloquence, that powerful instrument of deceit, 

j and to bring it back to their cool and sound 

judgments. They were, therefore, told that 



320 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



name was called, lord Mansfield was ob- 
served to flush in the face (a signal of guilt 
not uncommon with him), and cried out, 
pass him by. This I take to be something 
more than a peremptory challenge. It is 
an -unlawful command, without any reason 
assigned. That the counsel did not resist, 
is true ; but this might happen either from 
inadvertence, or a criminal complaisance to 
lord Mansfield. — You Barristers are too 
apt to be civil to my Lord Chief Justice, at 
the expense of your clients. 

2°. Junius did never say that lord Mans- 
field had destroyed the liberty of the press. 
' That his Lordship has laboured to destroy, 
■ — that his doctrine is an attack upon the 
liberty of the press, — that it is an invasion 
of the right of juries,' are the propositions 
maintained by Junius. His opponents 
never answer him in point, for they never 
meet him fairly upon his own ground. 

damages are by way of retribution or compensa- 
tion to the plaintiff for the injury, and to be esti- 
mated from all circumstances. The rank and 
situation of the parties were not of themselves 
decisive. A peer, under some circumstances, 
may be entitled to less damages for this injury 
than a tradesman under other circumstances : 
That it might be just, in certain situations, to 
give small damages for this injury against a de- 
fendant of great wealth, and in other situations 
to give ten thousand pounds against a person of 
low degree. Even from the spurious opinion pub- 
lished, the case appears to have been left to the 
jury, upon all the circumstances, without a single 
remark on any of them, without a word of allevia- 
tion. No cases were mentioned where moderate 
damages had been given to peers of the highest 
rank for this injury against persons of great for- 
tune. 

The next charge of Junius and his party 
against the noble lord is, ' that he has changed 
the system of jurisprudence.' — The uncandid 
party do not recollect that lord Mansfield has 
had three assistants most eminent for knowledge 
and integrity. The only change we of West- 
minster Hall either know or have heard of is, 
that the decisions inform and satisfy the bar : 
that hitherto no one has been reversed, and, 
which is a main point to the suitor, and perhaps 
new, there is no delay. — Since lord Mansfield 
sat there, the business, which flows into that 
channel, and leaves every other almost dry, is 
increased beyond behef. I have been assured, 
that besides all the other business, there are not 
fewer than seven or eight hundred causes entered 
every year at the sittings before his Lordship for 
London and Middlesex. It is at once unjust and 
uncandid to take from him all merit, while he 



3°. Lord Mansfield's policy, in endea- 
vouring to screen his unconsdtutional doc- 
trines behind an act of the legislature, is 
easily understood. — Let every Englishman 
stand upon his guard ; theright of juries to 
return a general verdict, in all cases what- 
soever, is a part of our constitution. It 
stands in no need of a bill, either enacting 
or declaratory, to confirm it.i 

4°. With regard to the Grosvenor cause, 
it is pleasant to observe that the doctrine 
attributed by Junius to lord Mansfield, is 
admitted by Zeno, and directly defended. 
The Barrister has not the assurance to 
deny it flatly, but he evades the charge, 
and softens the doctrine by such poor, 
contemptible quibbles, as cannot impose 
upon the meanest understanding. 

5°. The quandty of business in the Court 



goes through the immense fatigue which arises 
from a high reputation. 

As to lord Chatham's cause, the malevolent 
writer has sat down to invent a lie, without giving 
himself the trouble to inquire hito what passed 
in public upon that subject. I, as many more of 
the profession, attended that cause. Lord Mans- 
field moved the question, which was put to the 
judges, penned with a view to that point, upon 
which, it appeared afterwards, he thought the 
cause depended. Though it had been argued, 
both above and below, upon another point, the 
judges considered the point on which it had been 
argued. They were divided and prepared to 
give different opinions. Lord Mansfield, ap- 
prized of the disagreement among the judges, 
suggested that point upon which he thought the 
cause turned, be the other as it might. He pro- 
posed to the judges to consider it in that light. 
The House was adjourned expressly for this 
purpose ; and when the judges came to consider 
the cause on the point suggested by lord Mans- 
field, they were unanimous ; which terminated 
the cause, whatever the law might be upon the 
other point on which it was decided below. The 
allegation, that lord Mansfield made the decree 
for the commissioners, bears on its face the marks 
of a palpable falsehood. It is a mere invention 
of Junius ; never mentioned, n^ver suspected by 
any other writer : I am convinced, both from 
the delicacy of the commissioners and that of his 
Lordship, that not a single word ever passed 
between them on the subject. 

Temple, Oct. i6. A Barrister at Law. 
Edit. 

^ This subject was agitated in the House of 
Commons, in the spring of the year 1771, on the 
motion of Mr Dowdeswell for leave to bring in 
an enacting bill ; which was rejected, for the 
reasons assigned in the note, p. 248. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



321 



of Kings Bench proves nothing but the 
Htigious spirit of the people, arising from a 
great increase of wealth and commerce. 
These however are now upon the decline, 
and will soon leave nothing but law stiits 
behind them. When Junius affirms that 
lord Mansfield has laboured to alter the 
system of jurisprudence, in the court where 
his Lordship presides, he speaks to those, 
who are able to look a little further than 
the vulgar. Besides that the multitude are 
easily deceived by the imposing names of 
equity and substantial justice, it does not 
follow that a judge, who introduces into his 
court new modes of proceeding, and new 
principles of law, intends, in every iristance, 
to decide unjustly. Why should he, where 
he has no interest? — We say that lord 
Mansfield is a bad man, and a worse judge; 
— but we do not say that he is a mere devil. 
Our adversaries would fain reduce us to the 
difficulty of proving too much. — This arti- 
fice however shall not avail him. The truth 
of the matter is plainly this. When lord 
Mansfield has succeeded in his scheme of 
changing a court of co?nmo?i law to a court 
of equity, he will have it in his power to do 
injustice whenever he thinks proper. This, 
though a wicked purpose, is neither absurd 
nor unattainable. 

6°. The last paragraph, relative to lord 
Chatham's cause, cannot be answered. It 
partly refers to facts, of too secret a nature 
to be ascertained, and partly is unintelligi- 
ble. ' Upon one point, the cause is decided 
against lord Chatham. — Upon another 
point, it is decided for him.' — Both the law 
and the latiguage are well suited to a Bar- 
rister / — If I have any guess at this honest 
gentleman's meaning, it is, that, ' whereas 
the commissioners of the great seal saw the 
question in a point of view unfavourable to 
lord Chatha7n, and decreed accordingly, — 
lord Mansfield, out of sheer love and kind- 
ness to lord Chatham, took the pains to 
place it in a point of view more favourable 
to the appellant.' — Credat JudcBZLs Apella. 
— So curious an assertion would stagger 
the faith of Mr Sylva. 



LETTER LXIV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 2 Noveynber, 1771. 

We are desired to make the fol- 
lowing declaration, in behalf of Junius, 
upon three material points, on which his 
opinion has been mistaken, or misrepre- 
sented. 

1°. Junius considers the right of taxing 
the colonies, by an act of the British legis- 
lature, as a speculative right merely, never 
to be exerted, nor ever to be renounced. 
To his judgment it appears plain, ' That 
the general reasonings, which were emi- 
ployed against that power, went directly to 
our whole legislative right, and that one 
part of it could not be yielded to such argu- 
ments, without a virtual surrender of all 
the rest.' 

2°. That, with regard to press warrants, 
his argument should be taken in his own 
words, and answered strictly ; that com- 
parisons may sometimes illustrate, but 
prove nothing ; and that, in this case, an 
appeal to the passions is unfair and unne- 
cessary. Junius feels and acknowledges 
the evil in the most express terms, and will 
show himself ready to concur in any rational 
plan, that may provide for the hberty of the 
individual, without hazarding the safety of 
the community. At the same time, he 
expects that the evil, such as it is, be not 
exaggerated or misrepresented. In general, 
it is 7wt unjust that, when the rich man 
contributes his wealth, the/'oor man should 
serve the state in person ; — otherwise the 
latter contributes nothing to the defence of 
that law and constitution, from which he 
demands safety and protection. But the 
question does not lie between rich and 
poor. The laws of England make no such 
distinctions. Neither is it true that the 
poor man is torn from the care and support 
of a wife and family, helpless without him. 
The single question is, whether the sea 7n a ?i,'^ 



^ I confine myself strictly to seamen ; — if any 
others are pressed, it is a gross abuse, which the 
magistrates can and should correct. 
21 



322 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



in times of public danger, shall serve the 
merchant or the state, in that profession to 
which he was bred, and by the exercise of 
which alone he can honestly support him- 
self and his family. — General arguments 
against the doctrine of 7ieccssity, and the 
dangerous use that may be made of it, are 
of no weight in this particular case. Neces- 
sity includes the idea of inevitable. When- 
ever it is so, it creates a law, to which all 
positive laws and all positive rights must 
give way. In this sense the levy of ship- 
money by the king's warrant was not 
necessary, because the business might have 
been as well or better done by parliament. 
If the doctrine, maintained by Junius, be 
confined within this limitation, it will go 
but very little v/ay in support of arbitrary 
power. That the king is to judge of the 
occasion, is no objection, unless we are told 
how it can possibly be otherwise. There 
are other instances, not less important in 
the exercise, nor less dangerous in the 
abuse, in which the constitution relies en- 
tirely upon the king's judgment. The 
executive power proclaims war and peace, 
binds the nation by treaties, orders general 
embargoes, and imposes quarantines, not to 
mention a multitude of prerogative writs, 
which, though liable to the greatest abuses, 
were never disputed. 

3°. It has been urged, as a reproach to 
Junius, that he has not delivered an opinion 
upon the Game Laws, and particularly the 
late Dog Act. But Junius thinks he has 
much greater reason to complain, that he 
is never assisted by those, who are able to 
assist him,i and that almost the whole 
labour of the press is thrown upon a single 
hand, from which a discussion of every 
public question whatsoever is unreasonably 
expected. He is not paid for his labour, 
and certainly has a right to choose his em- 
ployment. As to the Game Laws, he 

never scrupled to declare his opinion, that 



^ In Private Letter, No. 66, addressed to Mr 
Wilkes, Junius complains of his want of 'sup- 
port in the newspapers.' — Edit. 

^ A case brought by lord Pomfret before the 
House, from one of the inferior courts, in refer- 



they are a species of the Forest Laws, that 
they are oppressive to the subject, and that 
the spirit of them is incompatible with legal 
liberty : — that the penalties, imposed by 
these laws, bear no proportion to the nature 
of the oft'ence ; that the mode of trial, and 
the degree and kind of evidence necessary 
to convict, not only deprive the subject of 
all the benefits of a trial by jury, but are in 
themselves too summary, and to the last 
degree arbitrary and oppressive. That, in 
particular, the late acts to prevent dog- 
stealing, or killing game between sun and 
sun, are distinguished by their absurdity, 
extravagance, and pernicious tendency. If 
these terms are weak, or ambiguous, in 
what language can Junius express himself? 
— It is no excuse for lord Mafisficld to say 
that he happened to be absent when these 
bills passed the House of Lords. It was 
his duty to be present. Such bills could 
never have passed the House of Commons 
without his knowledge. But we very well 
know by what rule he regulates his attend- 
ance. When that order was made in the 
House of Lords in the case of lord Potn- 
fret,^3.i which every Englishman shudders, 
my honest lord Mansfield found himself, 
by mere accident, in the Court of King's 
Bench. — Otherwise, he would have done 
wonders in defence of law and property ! 
The pitiful evasion is adapted to the cha- 
racter. But Junius will never justify him- 
self by the example of this bad man. The 
distinction between doing wrong and avoid- 
ing to do right belongs to lord Mansfield. 
Junius disclaims it. 



LETTER LXV. 



TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 

2 November, 1771. 
At the intercession of three of 
your countrymen, you have bailed a man, 
who, I presume, is also a Scotchman, and 



ence to a tract of ground, claimed by the parish 
in which he resided, as common land, but main- 
tained by his Lordship to be a pait of his own 
freehold. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



323 



whom the lord mayor of London had re- 
fused to bail.i I do not mean to enter 
into an examination of the partial, sinister 
motives of your" conduct ; but confining 
myself strictly to the fact, I affirm, that 
you have done that, which by law you were 
not warranted to do. The thief was taken 
in the theft ; — the stolen goods were found 
upon him, and he made no defence. In 
these circumstances (the truth of which you 
dare not deny, because it is of public no- 
toriety), it could not stand indifferent whe- 
ther he was guilty or not, much less could 
there be any presumption of his innocence ; 
and, in these circumstances, I affirm, in 
contradiction to YOU, Lord Chief Jus- 
tice Mansfield, that, by the laws of 
England, he was 7iot bailable. If ever Mr 
Eyre should be brought to trial, 2 we shall 
hear what you have to say for yourself ; 
and I pledge myself, before God and my 
country, in proper time and place to make 
good my charge against you. 

JUNIUS. 



^ In explanation of this assertion, the editor 
extracts the following paragraph from the Public 
Advertiser, Oct. 20, 1771. 

' Yesterday application was made to the lord 
ma^'or, by the friends of John Eyre, Esq., com- 
mitted on the oaths of Thomas Fielding, William 
Holder, William Payne, and William Nash, for 
feloniously stealing eleven quires of writing- 
paper. The circumstances were so strong against 
the prisoner, on whom the goods were found, and 
no defence whatever being set up by him before 
the magistrate who made the commitment, that 
the lord mayor refused to bail him. The alderman 
who committed him, had before refused to bail 
him, as it was alleged that no instance whatever 
had been known of a person being bailed under 
such circumstances. Mr Eyre was however 
bailed yesterday by lord Mansfield, himself in 
only ;i{^3oo and three Scottish securities in ;i^ioo 
each, a Kinloch, Farquar, and Innis. Eyre has 
smce made his escape.' — Edit. 

^ The facts of the case were as follow : On the 
2nd of Oct. 1771, Eyre was committed to Wood- 
street Compter, by Mr Alderman Halifax, for 
privately stealing out of a room at Guildhall three 
quires of writing-paper, which were found upon 
him ; on searching his lodgings, there were dis- 
covered, in a box, eight quires more of the same 
sort of paper, which had been marked privately 
for the discovery of the thief. Eyre had attend- 
ed at the justice-room for a considerable time 
under the pretence of learning the business of a 
magistrate, to which situation, he sai-d, he shortly 



LETTER LXVI. 

FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

9 Novejnber, 1J71. 
Junius engages to make good his 
charge against lord chief justice Ma?isfield, 
some time before the meeting of parlia- 
ment, in order that the House of Commons 
may, if they think proper, make it one 
article in the impeachment of the said 
lord chief justice. 



LETTER LXVI I. 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 3 
28 November, 1771. 
What is the reason, my Lord, 
that, when almost every man in the king- 
dom, without distinction of principles or 
party, exults in the ridiculous defeat of Sir 
James Lowther,"* when good and bad men 
unite in one common opinion of that ba- 



expected to be appointed. On the day preceding 
the date of this letter, he surrendered himself at 
the Old Bailey to take his trial for stealing the 
paper, to which charge he pleaded guilty, and 
threw himself on the mercy of the court, fie 
was sentenced to be transported. This sordid 
wretch was asserted, at the time of committing 
so miserable a theft, to be worth at least thirty 
thousand pounds. — Edit. 

3 This letter, as the author declares In Private 
Letter, No. 44, was written In consequence of a 
communication from Garrick to Ramus, and from 
the latter to the king, that Junius would write 
no more ; and hence the questions In the con- 
cluding paragraph. The words of the author are, 
' David Garrick has literally forced me to break 
my resolution of writing no more,' for the subse- 
quent letter addressed to lord Mansfield was 
completed some time previous to the date of this 
Letter, as may be seen In Private Letter, No. 
40, where, and In that which follows it, will be 
found an explanation of the curious circumstance 
of the communication to the king, the author's 
early knowledge of the fact, and a copy of the 
very severe letter which he sent to I\Ir Garrick, 
In consequence of the Information which he had 
given to Mr Ramus. — Edit. 

■* He refers to the case of Lowther against the 
duke of Portland, In the contest concerning 
Inglewood Forest, &c. In Cumberland. See the 
detail and determination of the dispute (which 
last had now just taken place) in note, p. 300. — 
Edit. 



324 



LEITERS OF JUNIUS. 



ronet, and triumph in his distress, as if 
the event (without any reference to vice or 
virtue) were interesting to human nature, 
your Grace alone should appear so misera- 
bly depressed and afflicted? In such uni- 
versal joy, I know not where you will look 
for a comphment of condolence, unless you 
appeal to the tender, sympathetic sorrows 
of Mr Bradshaw. That cream-coloured 
gentleman's tears, ^ affecting as they are, 
carry consolation along with them. He never 
weeps, but, like an April shower, v^ith a 
lambent ray of sunshine upon his counten- 
ance. From the feelings of honest men, 
upon this joyful occasion, I do not mean to 
draw any conclusion to your Grace. They 
naturally rejoice, when they see a signal 
instance of tyranny resisted with success ; — 
of treachery exposed to the derision of the 
world ; — an infamous informer defeated, 
and an impudent robber dragged to the 
public gibbet.— But, in the other class of 
mankind, I own I expected to meet the 
duke of Grafton. Men, who have no re- 
gard for justice, nor any sense of honour, 
seem as heartily pleased with sir James 
Lowther's well-deserved punishment, as if 
it did not constitute an example against 
themselves. The unhappy baronet has 
no friends, even among those who resem- 
ble him. You, my Lord, are not yet re- 
duced to so deplorable a state of derelic- 



■^ See Miscellaneous Letter LXXI. — Edit. 

^ There is a certain family in this country, on 
which nature seems to have entailed an heredi- 
ary baseness of disposition. As far as their his- 
tory has been known, the son has regularly im- 
proved upon the vices of his father, and has taken 
care to transmit them pure and undiminished 
into the bosom of his successor. In the senate, 
their abilities have confined them to those hum- 
ble, sordid services, in which the scavengers of 
the ministry are usually employed. But in the 
memoirs of private treachery, they stand first 
and unrivalled. The following story will serve 
to illustrate the character of this respectable 
family, and to convince the world that the pre- 
sent possessor has as clear a title to the infamy 
of his ancestors, as he has to their estate. It 
deserves to be recorded for the curiosity of the 
fact, and should be given to the public as a warn- 
ing to every honest member of society. 

The present lord Irnham, who is now in the 
decline of life, lately cultivated the acquaintance 
of a younger brother of a family, with which he 



tion. Every villain in the kingdom is your 
friend ; and, in compliment to such amity, 
I think you should suffer your dismal 
countenance to clear up. Besides, my Lord, 
I am a httle anxious for the consistency of 
your character. You violate your own 
rules of decorum, when you do not insult 
the man whom you have betrayed. 

The divine justice, of retribution seems 
now to have begun its progress. Deliberate 
treachery entails punishment upon the 
traitor. There is no possibility of escaping 
it, even in the highest rank to which the 
consent of society can exalt the meanest 
and worst of men. The forced, unnatural 
union of Luttrell and Middlesex was an 
omen of another unnatural union, by which 
indefeasible infamy is attached to the House 
of Brunswick. If one of those acts 
was virtuous and honourable, the best of 
princes, I thank God, is happily rewarded 
for it by the other. — Your Grace, it has 
been said, had some share in recommend- 
ing colonel Luttrell to the king ; — or was it 
only the gentle Bradshaw, who made him- 
self answerable for the good behaviour of 
his friend ? An intimate connexion has 
long subsisted between him and the wor- 
thy lord Irnham. It arose from a for- 
tunate similarity of principles, cemented by 
the constant mediation of their common 
friend Miss Davis. ^ 



had lived in some degree of intimacy and friend- 
ship. The young man had long been the dupe 
of a most unhappy attachment to a common 
prostitute. His friends and relations foresaw the 
consequences of this connexion, and did every 
thing that depended upon them to save him from 
ruin. But he had a friend in lord Irnham, whose 
advice rendered all their endeavours ineffectual. 
This hoary letcher, not contented with the en- 
joyment of his friend's mistress, [the notorious 
Polly Davis, mentioned in the letter above,] was 
base enough to take advantage of the passions 
and folly of a young man, and persuaded him to 
marry her. He descended even to perform the 
office of father to the prostitute. He gave her 
to his friend, who was on the point of leaving the 
kingdom, and the next night lay with her him- 
self. 

Whether the depravity of the human heart can 
produce anything more base and detestable than 
this fact, must be left undetermined, until the 
son shall arrive at his father's age and experi- 
ence. — Author. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



32£ 



Yet I confess I should be sorry that the 
opprobrious infamy of this match should 
reach beyond the family. — We have now a 
better reason than ever to pray for the long 
life of the best of princes, and the welfare 
of his royal issue. — I will not mix anything 
ominous with my prayers ; — but let parlia- 
ment look to it. — A Luttj-ell shall never 
succeed to the crown of England. ^ — If the 
hereditary virtues of the family deserve a 
kingdom, Scotland will be a proper retreat 
for them. 

The next is a most remarkable instance 
of the goodness of Providence. The just 
law of retaliation has at last overtaken the 
Httle, contemptible tyrant of the North. To 
this son-in-law of your dearest friend the 
earl of Bute, you meant to transfer the duke 
of Portland's property ; 2 and you hastened 
the grant, with an expedition unknown to 
the Treasury, that he might have it time 
enough to give a decisive turn to the elec- 
tion for the county. The immediate conse- 
quence of this flagitious robbery was that 
he lost the election, which you meant to in- 
sure to him, and with such signal circum- 
stances of scorn, reproach, and insult (to 
say nothing of the general exultation of all 
parties), as (excepting the king's brother- 
in-law colonel Luttrell,^ and old Simon his 
father-in-law) hardly ever fell upon a gentle- 
man in this country. — In the event, he loses 
the very property of which he thought he 
had gotten possession ; and after an ex- 
pense, which would have paid the value of 
the land in question twenty times over. — 
The forms of villany, you see, are necessary 
to its success. Hereafter you will act with 
greater circumspection, and not drive so 
directly to your object. To snatch a grace, 



This note appeared in the Public Advertiser, 
April 7, 1769, under the signature of Recens. — 
Edit. 

^ The duke of Cumberland was now married 
to _ Mrs Horton, colonel Luttrell's sister. See 
Miscellaneous Letter, No. CII. — Edit. 

^ See note, p. 300. — Edit. 

3 See Miscellaneous Letter, No. CII. Our 
author thus denominates his Majesty, because, 
by the marriage of Luttrell's sister, Mrs Hor- 
ton, with the duke of Cumberland, Luttrell was 



I beyond the reach of common treachery, is 
an exception, not a rule. 

And now, my good Lord, does not your 
conscious heart inform you, that the justice 
of retribution begins to operate, and that it 
may soon approach your person ? — Do you 
think that Junius has renounced the 
Middlesex election ?— Or that the king's 
timber shall be refused to the royal navy 
M-ith impunity ? ^ — Or that you shall hear no 
more of the sale of that patent to Mr Hiiic, 
which you endeavoured to skreen by sud- 
denly dropping your prosecution of Samuel 
Vaughan,^ when the rule against him was 
made absolute ? I believe indeed there 
never was such an instance in all the history 
of negative impudence. — But it shall not 
save you. The very sunshine you live in is 
a prelude to your dissolution. When you 
are ripe, you shall be plucked. 

JUNIUS. 

P. S. I beg you will convey to our 
gracious master my humble congratula- 
tions upon the glorious success of peer- 
ages and pensions, so lavishly distributed as 
the rewards of Irish virtue. 



LETTER LXVin.6 

TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 

21 January, 1772. 
I HAVE undertaken to prove that 
when, at the intercession of three of your 
countrymen, you bailed Johji Eyre, you 
did that, which by law you were not wa?'- 
ranted to do, and that a felon, under the 
circumstances of being taken in the fact, 
luith the stolen goods iipon him, ajid making 



legally become brother-in-law to the king's 
brother ; as was Luttrell's father, father-in-law to 
him. — Edit. 

'* See note, p. 303. — Edit. 

5 See Letter XXXIIL, and Private Letter, 
No. 15, for the particulars of the transaction 
here alluded to. — Edit. 

6 The author, speaking of this Letter, says, 
* The paper itself is, in viy opinion, of the high- 
est style of Junius, and cannot fail to sell.' 
Private Letter, No. 49. — Edit. 



326 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



no defence, is not bailable by the laws of 
England. Your learned advocates have in- 
terpreted this charge into a denial that the 
Court of King's Bench, or the judges of 
that court during the vacation, have any 
greater authority to bail for criminal of- 
fences, than a justice of peace. With the 
instance before me, I am supposed to ques- 
tion your power of doing wrong, and to 
deny the existence of a power, at the same 
moment that I arraign the illegal exercise 
of it. But the opinions of such men, 
whether wilful in their malignity, or sincere 
in their ignorance, are unworthy of my 
notice. You, lord Mansfield, did not 
understand me so, and I promise you, your 
cause requires an abler defence. — I am now 
to make good my charge against you. 
However dull my argument, the subject of 
it is interesting. I shall be honoured with 
the attention of the public, and have a right 
to demand the attention of the legislature. 
Supported, as I am, by the whole body of 
the criminal law of England, I have no 
doubt of establishing my charge. If, on 
your part, you should have no plain, sub- 
stantial defence, but should endeavour to 
shelter yourself under the quirk and evasion 
of a practising lawyer, or under the mere 
insulting assertion of power without right, 
the reputation you pretend to is gone for 
ever ; — you stand degraded from the respect 
and authority of your office, and are no 
longer, de jure. Lord Chief Justice of 
England. This letter, my Lord, is ad- 
dressed, not so much to you, as to the 
public. Learned as you are, and quick in 
apprehension, few arguments are necessary 
to satisfy you that you have done that, 
which by law you were not warranted to do. 
Your conscience already tells you, that you 
have sinned against knowledge, and that 
whatever defence you make contradicts 
3'^our own internal conviction. But other 
men are willing enough to take the law 
upon trust. They rely upon authority, 
because they are too indolent to search for 
information ; or, conceiving that there is 
some mystery in the laws of their country, 
which lawyers are only qualified to explain, 



they distrust their judgment, and volun- 
tarily renounce the right of thinking for 
themselves. With all the evidence of his- 
tory before them, from Tresilliafi to yef- 
feries, from yefferies to Mansfield, they 
will not believe it possible that a learned 
judge can act in direct contradiction to 
those laws, which he is supposed to have 
made the study of his life, and which he 
has sworn to administer faithfully. Super- 
stition is certainly not the characteristic of 
this age. Yet some men are bigoted in 
politics who are infidels in religion. — I do 
not despair of making them ashamed of 
their credulity. 

The charge I brought against you is ex- 
pressed in terms guarded and well con- 
sidered. They do not deny the strict 
power of the judges of the Court of King's 
Bench to bail in cases not bailable by a 
justice of peace, nor replevisable by the 
common writ, or ex officio by the sheriff. 
I well knew the practice of the court, and 
by what legal rules it ought to be directed. 
But far from meaning to soften or diminish 
the force of those terms I have made use 
of, I now go beyond them, and affirm, 

I. That the superior power of bailing for 
felony, claimed by the Court of King's 
Bench, is founded upon the opinion of 
lawyers, and the practice of the court ; — 
that the assent of the legislature to this 
power is merely negative, and that it is not 
supported by any positive provision in any 
statute whatsoever. — If it be, produce the 
statute. 

II. Admitting that the judges of the 
Court of King's Bench are vested with a 
discretionary power to examine and judge 
of circumstances and allegations, which a 
justice of peace is not permitted to consider, 
I affirm, that the judges, in the use and ap- 
plication of that discretionary power, are as 
strictly bound by the spirit, intent, and 
meaning, as the justice of peace is by the 
words of the legislature. Favourable cir- 
cumstances, alleged before the judge, may 
justify a doubt whether the prisoner be 
guilty or not ; and where the guilt is doubt- 
ful, a presumption of innocence should, in 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



327 



general, be admitted. But, when any such 
probable circumstances are alleged, they 
alter the state and condition of the prisoner. 
He is no longer that all-but-convicted ielon, 
whom the law intends, and who by law is 
7iot bailable at all. If no circumstances 
whatsoever are alleged in his fa\'our ; — if no 
allegation whatsoever be made to lessen the 
force of that evidence, which the law an- 
nexes to a positive charge of felony, and 
particularly to the fact of bei7tg taken ivith 
the inaner, I then say that the lord chief 
justice of England has no more right to 
bail him than a justice of peace. The dis- 
cretion of an English judge is not of mere 
will and pleasure ; it is not arbitrary ; — it is 
not capricious ; but, as that great lawyer 
(whose authority I wish you respected half 
as much as I do) truly says.i ' Discretion, 
taken as it ought to be, is discernej-e per 
legem quid sit justum. If it be not directed 
by the right line of the law, it is a crooked 
cord, and appeareth to be unlawful.' — If 
discretion were arbitrary in the judge, he 
might introduce whatever novelties he 
thought proper ; but, says lord Coke, 
' Novelties, v.ithout warrant of precedents, 
are not to be allowed ; some certain rules 
are to be followed/ — Quicquid judicis 
authoritati subjicitur, novitati non subji- 
citur ; ' and this sound doctrine is applied 
to the Star-chamber, a court confessedly 
arbitrary. If you will abide by the authority 
of this great man, you shall have all the 
advantage of his opinion, where\er it 
appears to favour you. Excepting the 
plain, express meaning of the legislature, to 
which ail private opinions mast give way, I 
desire no better judge between us than lord 
Coke. 

III. T affirm, that according to the ob- 
vious, indisputable meaning of tlie legisla- 
ture, repeatedly expressed, a person posi- 
tively charged with feloniously stealing, 
and taken in*flagrante delicto, with the 
stolen goods upon him, is not bailable. 
The law considers him as differing in no- 
thing from a convict, but in the form of 



4 Inst. 41, 66. 



conviction, and (whatever a corrupt judge 
may do) will accept of no security, but the 
confinement of his body within four walls. 
I know it has been alleged in your favour, 
that you have often bailed for murders, 
rapes, and other manifest crimes. Without 
questioning the fact, I shall not admit that 
you are to be justified by your own example. 
If that were a protection to you, where is 
the crime that, as a judge, you might not 
now securely commit ? But neither shall I 
suffer myself to be drawn aside from my 
present argument, my[ you to profit by your 
own A\'rong. To prove the meaning and 
intent of the legislature wdll require a minute 
and tedious deduction. To investigate a 
question of law demands some labour and 
attention, though very little genius or sa- 
gacity. As 2, practical profession, the study 
of the law requires but a moderate portion 
of abihties. The learning of a pleader is 
usually upon a level with his integrity. 
The indiscriminate defence of right and 
wrong contracts the understanding, while 
it corrupts the heart. Subtlety is soon mis- 
taken for wisdom, and impunity for virtue. 
If there be any instances upon record, as 
some there are undoubtedly, of genius and 
morality united in a lawyer, they are dis- 
tinguished by their singularity, and operate 
as exceptions. 

I must solicit the patience of my readers. 
This is no light matter, nor is it any more 
susceptible of ornament, than the conduct 
of lord ^Mansfield is capable of aggravation. 

As the law of bail, in charges of felony, 
has been exactly ascertained by acts of the 
legislature, it is at present of little con- 
sequence to enquire how it stood at com- 
mon law, before the statute of Westminster. 
And yet it is worth the reader's attention to 
observe, how nearly, in the ideas of our 
ancestors, the circumstance of being taken 
■with the 7/ianer approached to the con- 
viction of the felon. It "fixed the author- 
itative stamp of verisimilitude upon the 
accusation, and by the common law, when 
a thief was taken with the maner (that is, 
with the thing stolen upon him, in manu) 
he might, so detected, flagrante delicto, be 



328 



lettf:rs of Junius. 



brought into court, arraigned and tried, 
without indictment ; as, by the Danish 
law, he might be taken and hanged upon 
the spot, without accusation or trial.' i It 
will soon appear that our statute law, in 
this behalf, though less summary in point of 
proceeding, is directed by the same spirit. 
In one instance, the very form is adhered 
to. In offences relating to the forest, if a 
man was taken with vert, or venison, it was 
declared to be equivalent to an indictment. 2 
To enable the reader to judge for himself, 
I shall state, in due order, the several sta- 
tutes relative to bail in criminal cases, or as 
much of them as may be material to the 
point in question, omitting superfluous 
words. If I misrepresent, or do not quote 
with fidelity, it will not be difficult to de- 
tect me. 

The statute of Westminster the first, ^ in 
1275, sets forth that, ' Forasmuch as sheriffs 
and others, who have taken and kept in 
prison persons detected of felony, and in- 
continent have let out by replevin such as 
were not replevisable, because they would 
gain of the one party and grieve the other ; 
and, forasmuch as, before this time, it was 
not determined which persons were reple- 
visable and which not, it is provided, and 
by the king commanded, that such prison- 
ers, &c. as be taken with the 7naner, &c. 
or for manifest offences, shall be in no wise 
replevisable by the common writ, nor 
without writ.' ^ — Lord Coke, in his exposi- 
tion of the last part of this quotation, ac- 
curately distinguishes between replevy by 
the common writ or ex officio, and bail by 
the King's Bench. The words of the sta- 
tute certainly do not extend to the judges 
of that court. But, besides that the reader 
will soon find reason to think that the 
legislature, in their intention, made no 
difference between bailable and replevisable, 

^ Blackstone, 4, 303. 

"^ I Ed. III. cap. 8.— and 7 Rich. II. cap. 4. 

3 ' Videttir qzie le statute de maittprise nest 
q7ie rehersall del cojnen ley.' Bro. Mainp. 61. 

4 ' There are three points to be considered in 
the construction of all remedial statutes : — the 
old law, the mischief, and the remedy ; — that is, 
how the common law stood at the making of the 



lord Coke himself (if he be understood to 
mean nothing but an exposition of the sta- 
tute of Westminster, and not to state the 
law generally) does not adhere to his own 
distinction. In expounding the other of- 
fences, which, by this statute, are declared 
7tot replevisable, he constantly uses the 
words not bailable. — 'That outlaws, for 
instance, are not bailable at all; — that 
persons who have abjured the realm, are 
attainted upon their own confession, and 
therefore not bailable at all by law ; — that 
provers are not bailable ;~-ihaX notorious 
felons are 7iot bailable.' The reason why 
the superior courts were not named in the 
statute of Westminster, was plainly this, 
'because anciently most of the business, 
touching bailment of prisoners for felony 
or misdemeanours, was performed by the 
sheriffs, or special bailiffs of liberties, eitlier 
by writ, or virtute officii;'^ consequently 
the superior courts had little or no oppor- 
tunity to commit those abuses, which the 
statute imputes to the sheriffs. — With sub- 
mission to Doctor Blackstone, I think he 
has fallen into a contradiction, which, in 
terms at least, appears irreconcileable. 
After enumerating several offences not 
bailable, he asserts, without any condition 
or limitation whatsoever, ' all which are 
clearly not admissible to bail.'^ Yet in a 
few lines after he says, ' it is agreed 
that the Court of King's Bench may bail 
for any crime whatsoever, according to the 
circumstance of the case.' To his first 
proposition he should have added, by 
sheriffs or justices ; otherwise the two pro- 
positions contradict each other ; with this 
difference however, that the first is absolute, 
the second limited by a consideration of 
circumstances. I say this without the least 
intended disrespect to the learned author. 
His work is of pubUc utility, and should 
not hastily be condemned. 



act, what the mischief was for which the com- 
mon law did not provide, and what remedy the 
parliament hath provided to cure this mischief. 
It is the business of the judges so to construe 
the act, as to suppress the mischief and advance 
the remedy.' Blackstone, i, 87. 
S 2 Hale, P. C. 128, 136. 6 Blackstotie, 4, 299 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



329 



The statute of 17 Richard II. cap. 10, in 
1393, sets forth, that 'forasmuch as thieves 
notoriously defamed, and others taken with 
the inaner, by their long abiding in prison, 
were delivered by charters, and favourable 
inquests procured, to the great hinderance 
of the people, two men of law shall be 
assigned, in every commission of the peace, 
to proceed to the deliverance of such felons,' 
&c. It seems, by this act, that there was 
a constant struggle between the legislature 
and the officers of justice. Not daring to 
admit felons taken with the maner to bail 
or mainprize, they evaded the law by keep- 
ing the party in prison a long time, and 
then delivering him without due trial. 

The statute of i Richard III., in 1483, 
sets forth, that ' forasmuch as divers per- 
sons have been daily arrested and imprison- 
ed for suspicio7i of felony, sometime of 
malice, and sometime of a light suspicioti, 
and so kept in prison without bail or main- 
prize, be it ordained that every justice of 
peace shall have authority, by his dis- 
cretion, to let such prisoners and persons 
so arrested to bail or mainprize.' — By this 
act it appears that there had been abuses 
in matter of imprisonment, and that the 
legislature meant to provide for the im- 
mediate enlargement of persons arrested 
on light suspicion of felony. 

The statute of 3 He?iiy VII., in 1486, 
declares, that ' under colour of the preced- 
ing act of Richard the Third, persons, such 
as were not mainpernable, were oftentimes 
let to bail or mainprize, by justices of the 
peace, whereby many murderers and felons 
escaped, the king, &c. hath ordained, that 
the justices of the peace, or two of them at 
the least (whereof one to be of the quorum), 
have authority to let any such prisoners or 
persons, mainpernable by the law, to bail 
or mainprize. ' 

The statute of ist and 2nd of Philip and 
Mary, in 1554, sets forth, that 'notwith- 
standing the preceding statute of Henry the 
Seventh, one justice of peace hath often- 

^ 2 Hale, P. C. 2, 124. 

^ Vide 2 Inst. 150, 186. — 'The word replevis- 
able never signifies bailable. Bailable is in a 



times, by sinister labour and means, set at 
large the greatest and notablest offenders, 
such as be not replevisable by the laws of this 
realm ; and yet, the rather to hide their 
affections in that behalf, have signed the 
cause of their apprehension to be but only 
for suspicion of felony, whereby the said 
offenders have escaped unpunished, and do 
daily, to the high displeasure of Almighty 
God, the great peril of the king and queen's 
true subjects, and encouragement of all 
thieves and evil-doers ; — for reformation 
whereof be it enacted, that no justices of 
peace shall let to bail or mainprize any 
such persons, which, for any offence by 
them committed, be declared not to be 
replevised or bailed, or be forbidden to be 
replevised or bailed by the statute of West- 
minster the first ; and furthermore that any 
persons, arrested for manslaughter or felony, 
bei?ig bailable by the law, shall not be let to 
bail or mainprize, by any justices of peace, 
but in the form thereinafter prescribed.' — 
In the two preceding statutes, the words 
bailable, replevisable, and mainpernable 
are used synonymously, ^ or promiscuously 
to express the samie single intention of the 
legislature, viz. not to accept ofatiy security 
but the body of the offender; and when the 
latter statute prescribes the form, in which 
persons arrested on suspicion of felony 
[being bailable by thelaiv) may be let to 
bail, it evidently supposes that there are 
some cases, not bailable by the law. — It 
may be thought, perhaps, that I attribute 
to the legislature an appearance of inac- 
curacy in the use of terms, merely to serve 
my present purpose. But, in truth, it 
would make more forcibly for my argument 
to presume that the legislature were con- 
stantly aware of the strict legal distinction 
between bail and replevy, and that they 
always meant to adhere to it. 2 For if it be 
true that replevy is by the sheriffs, and bail 
by the higher courts at Westminster (which 
I think no lawyer will deny), it follows, that 
when the legislature expressly say, that any 



court of record by the king's justices ; but reple- 
visable is by the sheriff.' ' 

Selden, State Tr. 7, 149. 



330 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



particular offence is bylaw not bailable, the 
superior courts are comprehended in the 
prohibition, and bound by it. Otherwise, 
unless there was a positive exception of the 
superior courts (which I affirm there never 
was in any statute relative to bail) the 
legislature would grossly contradict them- 
selves, and the manifest intention of the 
law be evaded. It is an established rule 
that, when the law is special, and the rea- 
son of it general, it is to be generally un- 
derstood ; and though, by custom, a lati- 
tude be allowed to the Court of King's 
Bench (to consider circumstances inductive 
of a doubt whether the prisoner be guilty 
or innocent), if this latitude be taken as an 
arbitrary power to bail, when no circum- 
stances whatsoever are alleged in favour of 
the prisoner, it is a power without right, 
and a daring violation of ihe whole English 
law of bail. 

The act of the 31st of Charles the Second 
(commonly called the Habeas Corpus Act) 
particularly declares, that it is not meant to 
extend to treason or felony plainly and 
specially expressed in the warrant of com- 
mitment. The prisoner is therefore left to 
seek his Habeas Corpus at common law ; 
and so far was the legislature from suppos- 
ing that persons (committed for treason or 
felony plainly and specially expressed in the 
warrant of commitment) could be let to 
bail by a single judge, or by the whole 
court, that this very act provides a remedy 
for such persons, in case they are not in- 
dicted in the course of the term or session 
subsequent to their commitment. The law 
neither suffers them to be enlarged before 
trial, nor to be imprisoned after the time in 
which they ought regularly to be tried. In 
this case the law says, ' It shall and may 
be lawful to and for the judges of the Court 
of King's Bench and justices of oyer and 
terminer, or general gaol delivery, and they 
are hereby required, upon motion to them 
made in open court, the last day of the 
term, session, or gaol delivery, either by 
the prisoner or any one in his behalf, to set 
at liberty the prisoner upon bail ; unless it 
appear to the judges and justices, upon 



oath made, that the witnesses for the king 
I could not be produced the same term, 
I sessions, or gaol dehvery.' — Upon the 
I whole of this article I observe, 

1°. That the provision, made in the first 
part of it, would be, in a great measure, 
[ useless and nugatory, if any single judge 
! might have bailed the prisoner ex arbiirio, 
during the vacation ; or if the court might 
have bailed him immediately after the 
commencement of the term or sessions. — 
2°. When the law says. It shall and may 
be lawful to bail for felony under particular 
circumstances, we must presume that, be- 
fore the passing of that act, it was not law- 
ful to bail under those circumstances. 
The terms used by the legislature are enact- 
ing, not declaratory. — 3°. Notwithstanding 
the party may have been imprisoned during 
the greatest part of the vacation, and dur- 
ing the whole session, the court are ex- 
pressly forbidden to bail him from that 
session to the next, if oath be made that 
the witnesses for the king could not be 
produced that same term or sessions. 

Having faithfully stated the several acts 
of parliament relative to bail in cnminal 
cases, it may be useful to the reader to take 
a short, historical review of the law of bail, 
through its various gradations and im- 
provements. 

By the ancient common law, before and 
since the conquest, all felonies were baila- 
ble, till murder was excepted by statute, so 
that persons might be admitted to bail, be- 
fore conviction, almost in every case. The 
statute of Westminster says that, before 
that time, it had not been determined, 
which offences were replevisable, and which 
were not, whether by the common writ de 
Iwmine replegiando, or ex officio by the 
sheriff. It is very remarkable that the 
abuses arising from this unlimited power of 
replevy, dreadful as they were, and de- 
structive to the peace of society, were not 
corrected or taken notice of by the legisla- 
ture, until the Commons of the kingdom 
had obtained a share in it by their repre- 
sentatives ; but the House of Commons 
had scarce begun to exist, when these 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



331 



formidable abuses were corrected by the 
statute of Westminster. It is highly pro- 
bable that the mischief had been severely 
felt by the people, although no remedy had 
been provided for it by the Norman kings 
or barons. ' The iniquity of the times was 
so great, as it even forced the subjects to 
forego that, which was in account a great 
liberty, to stop the course of a growing 
mischief.' ^ The preamble to the statutes, 
made by the first parliament of Edward the 
First, assigns the reason of cahing it, ' be- 
cause the people had been otherwise en- 
treated than they ought to be, the peace 
less kept, the laws less used, and offenders 
less punished than they ought to be, by 
reason whereof the people feared less to 
offend ; ' - and the first attempt to reform 
these various abuses w^as by contracting the 
power of replevying felons. 

For above two centuries following it does 
not appear that any alteration was made 
in the law of bail, e.xcept that bein^^ taken 
with vert or ve7iisoji was declared to be 
equivalent to indictment. The legislature 
adhered firmly to the spirit of the statute of 
Westminster. The statute of 27th of Ed- 
ward the First directs the justices of assize 
to enquire and punish officers baihng such 
as were not bailable. As for the judges of 
the superior courts, it is probable that, in 
those daj^s, they thought themselves bound 
by the obvious intent and meaning of the 
legislature. They considered not so much 
to what particular persons the prohibition 
was addressed, as what the thmg\\a.s, which 
the legislature meant to prohibit, well know- 
ing that in law, quando aliquid frohibetiir, 
prohibetur et o?n?ie, per quod devenitur ad 
illud. ' When any thing is forbidden, all 
the means, by which the same thing may be 
compassed or done, are equally forbidden." 

By the statute of Richard the Third, the 
power of bailing was a httle enlarged. 
Every justice of peace was authorized to 
bail for felony ; but they were expressly 
confined to persons arrested on light sus- 
picion ; and even this power, so hmited, 

^ Seidell, by N. Bacon, 182. 
° Parliamentary History, 1. 02. 



was found to produce such inconveniences 
j that, in three years " after, the legislature 
j found it necessary to repeal it. Instead of 
j trusting any longer to a single justice of 
I peace, the act of 3rd Henry Vllth repeals 
the preceding act, and directs ' that no 
: prisoner [of those who are mainper7iable by 
, the law) shall be let to bail or mainprize, 
by less than two justices, whereof one to be 
of the quorum.' And so indispensably 
necessary was this provision thought, for 
the administration of justice, and for the 
security and peace of society, that, at this 
time, an oath was proposed by the king to 
be taken by the knights and esquires of his 
household^ by the members of the House 
of Commons, and by the peers spiritual 
and temporal, and accepted and sworn to 
qtiasi U7id voce by them all, which, among 
other engagements, binds them ' not to let 
any man to bail or mainprize, knowing and 
deeming him to be a felon, upon your hon- 
our and worship. So help you God and 
all saints.' 3 

In about half a century however even 
these provisions were found insufficient. 
The act of Henry the Seventh was evaded, 
and the legislature once more obliged to 
interpose. The act of ist and 2nd of Phihp 
and Mary takes away entirely from the jus- 
tices all power of bailing for offences de- 
clared 7iot bailable by the statute of West- 
minster. 

The illegal imprisonment of several per- 
sons, who had refused to contribute to a 
loan exacted by Charles the First, and the 
delay of the Habeas Corpus and subsequent 
refusal to bail them, constituted one of the 
first and most important grievances of that 
reign. Yet when the House of Commons, 
which met in the year 1628, resolved upon 
measures of the most firm and strenuous 
resistance to the power of imprisonment 
assumed by the king or privy council, and 
to the refusal to bail the party on the re- 
turn of the Habeas Co7pus, they did ex- 
pressly, in all their resolutions, make an 
exception of commitments, where the cause 



Parliamentary History, 2. 419. 



332 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



of the restraint was expressed, and did by- 
law justify the commitment. The reason 
of the distinction is, that, whereas when the 
cause of commitment is expressed, the 
crime is then known, and the offender must 
be brought to the ordinary trial ; if, on the 
contrary, no' cause of commitment be 
expressed, and the prisoner be thereupon 
remanded, it may operate to perpetual im- 
prisonment. This contest with Charles the 
First produced the act of the i6th of that 
king, by which the Court of King's Bench 
are directed, within three days after the 
return to the Habeas Corpus, to examine 
and determine the legahty of any commit- 
ment by the king or privy council, and to 
do what to justice shall appertain in de- 
livering, bailing, or remanding the prisoner. 
— Now^ it seems, it is unnecessary for the 
judge to do what appertains to justice. The 
same scandalous traffic, in which we have 
seen the privilege of parliament exerted or 
relaxed, to gratify the present humour, or 
to serve the immediate purpose of the 
crown, is introduced into the administra- 
tion of justice. The magistrate, it seems, 
has now no rule to follow, but the dictates 
of personal enmity, national partiality, or 
perhaps the most prostituted corruption. 

To complete this historical inquiry, it 
only remains to be observed that the Habeas 
Corpus Act of 31st of Charles the Second, 
so justly considered as another Magna 
Charta of the kingdom, ' extends only to 
the case of commitments for such criminal 
charge, as can piuauce no inconvenience 
to pubhc justice by a temporary enlargement 
of the prisoner.' i— So careful were the 
legislature, at the very moment when they 
were providing for the liberty of the sub- 
ject, not to furnish any colour or pretence 
for violating or evading the established law 
of bail in the higher criminal offences. 
But the exception, stated in the body of 
the act, puts the matter out of all doubt. 
After directing the judges how they are to 
proceed to the discharge of the prisoner 
upon recognizance and surety, having re- 



Blackstonc, 4. 137. 



gard to the quality of the prisoner and 
nature of the offence, it is expressly added, 
' unless it shall appear to the said lord 
chancellor, &c. that the party, so commit- 
ted, is detained for such matters, oroffences, 
for the which by the law the prisoner 

IS NOT BAILABLE.' 

When the laws, plain of themselves, are 
thus illustrated by facts, and their uniform 
meaning established by history, we do not 
want the authority of opinions, however 
respectable, to inform our judgment, or to 
confirm our belief. But 1 am determined 
that you shall have no escape. Authority 
of every sort shall be produced against you, 
from Jacob to lord Coke, from the dic- 
tionary to the classic. — In vain shall you 
appeal from those upright judges whom 
you disdain to imitate, to those whom you 
have made your example. With one voice, 
they all condemn you. 

' To be taken with the maner is where a 
thief, having stolen any thing, is taken with 
the same about him, as it were in his hands, 
./hich is called flagrante delicto. Such a 
criminal is not bailable by law.' — Jacob 
under the word Ma?ier. 

' Those who are taken with the maner, 
are excluded, by the statute of Westminster, 
from the benefit of a replevin.' — Hawkins, 
P.C. 2. 98. 

' Of such heinous offences no one, who 
is notoriously guilty, seems to be bailable 
by the intent of this statute.' — D°. 2. 99. 

' The common practice, and allowed 
general rule is, that bail is only then proper, 
where it stands indifferent whether the party 
were guilty or innocent.' — U'.U'. 

' There is no doubt but that the bailing 
of a person who is not bailable by law, is 
punishable either at common law as a neg- 
ligent escape, or as an offence against the 
several statutes relative to bail.' — Lf . 89. 

' It cannot be doubted but that, neither 
the judges of this, nor of any other superior 
court of justice, are strictly within the pur- 
view of that statute, yet they will always, 
in their discretion, pay a due regard to it, 
and not admit a person to bail, who is ex- 
pressly declared by it irreplevisable, withotit 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



333 



some particular circumstance in his favour; 
and therefore it seems difficult to find an 
instance, where persons, attainted of felony, 
or notoriously guilty of treason or man- 
slaughter, &c., by their own confession, or 
otherwise, have been admitted to the benefit 
of bail, without some special motive to the 
court to grant it.' — D°. 114. 

' If it appears that any man hath injury 
or wrong by his imprisonment, we have 
power to deliver and discharge him ; — if 
otherwise, he is to be remanded by us to 
prison again.' — Lord Ch. J. Hyde. State 
Trials, 7. 115. 

' The statute of Westminster was espe- 
cially for direction to the sheriffs and others, 
but to say courts of justice are excluded 
from this stature, I conceive it cannot be.' 
— Attorney-Got eral Heath, D°. 132. 

' The court, upon view of the return, 
judgeth of the sufficiency or insufficiency of 
it. If they think the prisoner in law to be 
bailable, he is committed to the marshal 
and bailed ; if not, he is remanded.' — 
Through that whole debate the objection, on 
the part of the prisoners, was, that no cause 
of commitment was expressed in the war- 
rant ; but it was uniformly admitted by 
their counsel that, if the cause of commit- 
ment had been expressed for treason or 
felony, the court would then have done 
right in remanding them. 

The attorney-general having urged, be- 
fore a committee of both Houses, that, in 
Beckwith's case and others, the lords of the 
council sent a letter to the Court of King's 
Bench to bail ; it was replied by the man- 
agers for the House of CoiTimons, that this 
was of no moment, ' for that either the 
prisoner was bailable by the law, or not 
bailable ; — if bailable by the law, then he 
was to be bailed without any such letter ; — 
if not bailable by the law, then plainly the 
judges could not have bailed him upon the 
letter, without breach of their oath, which 
is, that they are to do justice according to 
the law, b=c.' — State Trials, 7. 175. 

' So that, inbaihngupon such offences of 
the highest nature, a kind of discretion, 
rather than a constant law, hath been exer- 



cised, v/hen it stands wholly i7idifferent in 
the eye of the Court, whether the prisoner 
be guilty or not,' — Selden. State Trials, 
7. 230. I. 

' I deny that a man is always bailable, 
when imprisonment is imposed upon him 
for custody.' — Attorney-General Heath, 
D°. 238. — By these quotations from the 
State Trials, though otherwise not of au- 
thority, it appears plainly that, in regard to 
bailable or not bailable, all parties agreed 
in admitting one proposition as incontro- 
vertible. 

' In relation to capital offences there are 
especially these acts of parliament that are 
the common landmarks ^ touching offences 
bailable or not bailable.' — Hale, 2. P. C. 
127. The enumeration includes the several 
acts cited in this paper. 

' Persons taken with the manouvre are 
not bailable, because it is fart um mani- 
festu7n.'—Hale 2. P. C. 133. 

' The Avrit of Habeas Corpus is of a high 
nature ; for if persons be wrongfully com- 
mitted, they are to be discharged upon this 
writ returned ; or, if bailable, they are to be 
bailed •,—if not bailable, they are to be com- 
mitted! —Hale, 2. P. C. 143. This doctrine 
of lord chief justice Hale refers immediately 
to the superior court from whence the writ 
issues. — ' After the return is filed, the court 
is either to discharge, or bail, or commit 
him, as the nature of the cause requires.' 
—Hale, 2. P. C. 146. 

' If bail be granted, otherwise than the 
law alloweth, the party that alloweth the 
same shall be fined, imprisoned, render 
damages, or forfeit his place, as the case 
shall require.' — Selden by N. Bacon, 182. 

' This induces an absolute necessity of 
expressing, upon every commitment, the 
reason for which it is made ; that the court, 
upon a Habeas Corpus, may examine into 
its validity, and, according to the circum- 
stances of the case, may discharge, admit to 
bail, or remand the prisoner.' — Blackstone, 

3- 133- 

' Marriot was committed for forging in- 

^ It has been the study of lord Mansfield to 
remove landmarks. 



334 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



dorsements upon bank bills, and, upon a 
Habeas Corpus, was bailed, because the 
crime was only a great misdemeanor ; — for 
though the forging the bills be felony, yet 
forging the indorsement is not.' —Salkeld, 
I. 104. 

' Appell de mahem, &c. ideo ne fuitlesse 
a bailie, nient plus que in appell de robbery 
ou murder ; quod nota, et que in robry et 
murder le partie n'est baillable.'— i?r(7. 
Mainprise, 67. 

' The intendment of the law in bails is, 
quod stat indiffereiiter , whether he be guilty 
or no ; but, when he is convict by verdict or 
confession, then he must be deemed in law 
to be guilty of the felony, and therefore 7iot 
bailable at all.' — Coke, 2. Inst. 188. — 4. 178. 

' Bail is qiiando stat indifferenter z.x\d. 7iot 
when the offence is open and manifest. '^2. 
Inst. 189. 

' In this case nofi stat indifferenier, 
whether he be guilty or no, being taken 
with the maner, that is, with the thing 
stolen, as it were in his hand.' — D° . LP. 

' If it appeareth that this imprisonment be 
just and lawful, he shall be remanded to the 
former gaoler ; but, if it shall appear to the 
court that he was imprisoned against the 
law of the land, they ought, by force of 
this statute, to deliver him ; if it be doubt- 
ful, and under consideration, he may be 
bailed.' — 2. Inst. 55. 

It is unnecessary to load the reader with 
any further quotations. If these authorities 
are not deemed sufficient to estabhsh the 
doctrine maintained in this paper, it will be 
in vain to appeal to the evidence of law- 
books, or to the opinions of judges. They 
are not the authorities by which lord Mans- 
field will abide. He assumes an arbitrary 
power of doing right ; and, if he does 
wrong, it lies only between God and his 
conscience. 

Now, my Lord, although I have great 
faith in the preceding argument, I will not 
say, that every minute part of it is absolutely 
invulnerable. I am too well acquainted 
with the practice of a certain court, directed 
by your example, as it is governed by your 
authority, to think there ever yet was an 



argument, however conformable to law and 
reason, in which a cunning, quibbling at- 
torney might not discover a flaw. But, 
taking the whole of it together, I affirm that 
it constitutes a mass of demonstration, than 
which nothing more complete or satisfac- 
tory can be offered to the human mind. 
How an evasive, indirect reply will stand 
with your reputation, or how far it will 
answer in point of defence at the bar of the 
House of Lords, is worth your considera- 
tion. If, , after all that has been said, it 
should still be maintained, that the Court 
of King's Bench, in bailing felons, are ex- 
empted from all legal rules whatsoever, and 
that the judge has no direction to pursue, 
but his private affections, or mere unques- 
tionable will and pleasure, it will follow 
plainly, that the distinction between bail- 
able and not bailable, uniformly expressed 
by the legislature, current through all our 
law-books, and admitted by all our great 
lawyers without exception, is in one sense a 
nugatory, in another a pernicious, distinc- 
tion. It is ntigatory, as it supposes a dif- 
ference in the bailable quality of offences, 
when, in effect, the distinction refers only 
to the rank of the magistrate. It is per- 
nicious, as it implies a rule of law, which 
yet the judge is not bound to pay the least 
regard to, and impresses an idea upon the 
minds of the people, that the judge is wiser 
and greater than the law. 

It remains only to apply the law, thus 
stated, to the fact in question. By an 
authentic copy of the mittimus it appears, 
that John Eyre was committed for felony, 
plainly and specially expressed in the war- 
rant of commitment. He was charged 
before alderman Halifax by the oath of 
Thomas Fielding, William Holder, William 
Payne, and WiUiam Nash, for feloniously 
stealing eleven quires of writing-paper, 
value six shillings, the property of Thomas 
Beach, &c. — By the examinations, upon 
oath, of the four persons mentioned in the 
mittimus, it was proved, that large quanti- 
ties of paper had been missed, and that 
eleven quires (previously marked from a 
suspicion that Eyre was the thief) were found 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



335 



upon him. Many other quires of paper, 
marked in the same manner, were fomid at 
his lodgings ; and after he had been some 
time in Wood-street Compter, a key was 
found in his room there, which appeared to 
be a key to the closet at Guildhall, from 
whence the paper was stolen. When asked 
what h6 had to say in his defence, his only 
answer was, I hope you will bail me. Mr 
Holder, the clerk, replied, That is iinpos- 
siblc. There never was an instance of it, 
when the stolen goods were foimd upon the 
thief. The lord mayor was then applied to, 
and refused to bail him.— Of all these cir- 
cumstances it was your duty to have informed 
yourself minutely. The fact was remark- 
able, and the chief magistrate of the city of 
London was known to have refused to bail 
the offender. To justify your compliance 
with the solicitations of your three country- 
men, it should be proved that such allega- 
tions were offered to you, in behalf of their 
associate, as honestly and bond fide reduced 
it to a matter of doubt and indifference 
whether the prisoner was innocent or guilty. 
— Was any thing offered by the Scotch 
triumvirate that tended to invalidate the 
positive charge made against him by four 
creditable witnesses upon oath? — Was it 
even insinuated to you, either by him.self or 
his bail, that no felony was committed ; — or 
that he was not the felon ; — that the stolen 
goods were not found upon him ; — or that he 
was only the receiver, not knowing them to 
be stolen? — Or, in short, did they attempt 
to produce any evidence of his insanity ? — 
To all these questions, I answer for you, 
without the least fear of contradiction, 
positively NO. From the moment he was 
arrested, he never entertained any hope of 
acquittal ; therefore thought of nothing but 
obtaining bail, that he might have time to 
settle his affairs, convey his fortune into 
another country, and spend the remainder 
of his life in comfort and affluence abroad. 
In this prudential scheme of future happi- 
ness, the lord chief justice of England most 
readily and heartily concurred. At sight of 
so much virtue in distress, your natural 
benevolence took the alarm. Such a man 



as Mr Eyre, struggling with adversity, must 
always be an interesting scene to lord 
Mansfield. — Or was it that liberal anxiety, 
by which your whole life has been distin- 
guished, to enlarge the hberty of the sub- 
ject ? — My Lord, we did not want this new 
instance of the liberality of your principles. 
We already knew what kind of subjects 
they were, for whose liberty you were 
anxious. At all events the public are much 
indebted to you for fixing a price, at which 
felony may be committed with impunity. 
You bound a felon, notoriously worth thirty 
thousand pounds, in the sum of three hun- 
dred. With' your natural turn to equity, 
and knowing, as you are, in the doctrine of 
precedents, you undoubtedly meant to 
settle the proportion between the fortune 
of the felon, and the fine by which he may 
compound for his felony. The ratio now 
upon record, and transmitted to posterity 
under the auspices of lord Mansfield, is 
exactly one to a hundred. — My Lord, with- 
out intending it, you have laid a cruel 
restraint upon the genius of your country- 
men. In the warmest indulgence of their 
passions they have an eye to the expense, 
and if their other virtues fail us, we have a 
resource in their economy. 

By taking so trifling a security from 
John Eyre, you invited and manifestly 
exhorted him to escape. Although in 
bailable cases, it be usual to take four 
securities, you left him in the custody of 
three Scotchmen, whom he might have 
easily satisfied for conniving at his retreat. 
That he did not make use of the oppor- 
tunity you industriously gave him, neither 
justifies your conduct, nor can it be any 
way accounted for, but by his excessive 
and monstrous avarice. Any other man, 
but this bosom-friend of three Scotchmen, 
would gladly have sacrificed a few hun- 
dred pounds, rather than submit to the 
infamy of pleading guilty in open court. 
It is possible indeed that he might have 
flattered himself, and not unreasonably, 
with the hopes of a pardon. That he 
would have been pardoned seems more 
than probable, if I had not directed the 



336 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



public attention to the leading step you 
took in favour of him. In the present gen- 
tle reign, we well know what use has been 
made of the lenity of the court and of the 
mercy of the crown. The lord chief justice 
of England accepts of the hundredth part 
of the property of a felon taken in the fact, 
as a recognizance for his appearance. 
Your brother Smythe brow-beats a jury, 
and forces them to alter their verdict, by 
which they had found a Scotch serjeaut 
guilty of murder ; and though the Ken- 
nedies were convicted of a most dehberate 
and atrocious murder, they still had a claim 
to the royal mercy.^ — They were saved by 
the chastity of their connexions. — They 
had a sister ; — yet it was not her beauty, 
but the pliancy of her virtue, that recom- 
mended her to the king. — The holy author 



■■■ The case of the Kennedies is stated in note, 
p. 242. — That of John Taylor Is as follows : He 
was a sei-jeant in the first, or royal Scots regi- 
ment of foot, and vv^as tried at the Guildford 
summer assizes, in the year 1770, for the murder 
of James Smith, the master of the Wheatsheaf, 
near Westminster bridge. It appeared upon the 
trial, that the deceased had uttered some aggra- 
vating expressions against the Scots ; in conse- 
quence of which the prisoner, being suddenly 
thrown off his guard, drew his sword and stabbed 
him. The jury, after dehberating a considerable 
time, brought in a verdict of guilty, on which 
Mr Baron Smythe expressed his surprise, adding 
that he had told them it was only manslaughter, 
and desired that a special verdict should be 
drawn up, which the intiinidaied jury signed. 
On this Mr Jasper Smith, a near relation of the 
deceased^ addressed the court in the following 
words : — ' My Lord, I am the nearest of kin to 
the unfortunate man who was murdered. I 
always thought, my Lord, when a verdict was 
once given, it was unalterable, but by the pre- 
sent method of proceeding there need not have 
been any jury at all. It is as plain a murder as 
can be, and I am persuaded your Lordship thinks 
so.' To this speech no reply was given. The 
decision of the judge. In the above case, occa- 
sioned some severe animadversions on his con- 
duct, and several queries were addressed to him 
upon the subject, which were repeatedly inserted 
in the Public Advertiser, so as to become ex- 
tremely conspicuous. This account however, 
extracted from that paper, does not seem to con- 
tain the whole train of the circumstances which 
preceded this unfortunate catastrophe, for when 
Taylor was brought to the bar of the King's 
Beiich, February 8, 1771, Lord Mansfield, who 
read the minutes of the evidence as taken down 
by Baron Smythe, who presided at the trial, ob- 
served, that it appeared that the prisoner had 



of our religion was seen in the company of 
sinners ; but it was his gracious purpose to 
convert them from their sins. Another 
man, who in the ceremonies of our faith 
might give lessons to the great enemy of it, 
upon different principles keeps much the 
same company. He advertises for patients, 
collects all the diseases of the heart, and 
turns a royal palace into an hospital for in- 
curables. — A man of honour has no ticket 
of admission at St James's. They receive 
him, like a virgin at the Magdalen ; — Go 
thou aiid do likewise. 

My charge against you is now made 
good. I shall however be ready to answer 
or to submit to fair objections.^ If, when- 
ever this matter shall be agitated, you suffer 
the doors of the House of Lords to be shut, 
I now protest, that I shall consider you as 



been three times assaulted by Smith, the de- 
ceased, collared and violently thrown backward 
upon a bench, without any provocation, turned 
out of the house, and called by the most oppro- 
brious names ; and further, that when out in the 
street, be was pursued and attacked by two men, 
before he offered to draw his sword ; from which 
circumstances the court was unanimously of opin- 
ion that he had only been guilty of manslaughter, 
and sentenced him to be burnt in the hand, which 
was performed accordingly, behind the bar. Mr 
Dunning also, a strong oppositionist, defended 
Mr Baron Smythe's conduct in respect to the 
trial alluded to by Junius, in a speech spoken 
on a motion made by Mr Serjeant Glynn, De- 
cember 6, 1770, 'for an enquiry Into the adminis- 
tration of criminal justice, and the proceedings 
of the judges In Westminster Hall, particularly 
in cases relating to the liberty of the press and 
the constitutional power and duty of juries.' Mr 
Dunnlng's words are as follow : — ' It is not 
that the characters of the judges are not tra- 
duced by groundless accusations and scandalous 
aspersions. These are grievances which every 
one sees, and every one laments. Judge Smythe, 
for example, has, to my knowledge, been very 
injuriously treated. His conduct in trying the 
Scotch Serjeant at Guildford, for which he has 
been so much abused In print, and now arraigned 
in parliament, was, in my opinion, very fair and 
honourable. I was consulted on the affair as an 
advocate, and I must say that I perfectly coin- 
cided with him in sentiment. Had I been in his 
place, I must have fallen under the same odium ; 
for my conscience would not have allowed me 
to use any other language but that of Baron 
Smythe.' — Edit. 

^ See Miscellaneous Letter, No. CVI., in 
which Junius defends the present Letter against 
several attacks which had been made upon it in 
the Public Advertiser. — Edit. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



337 



having made no reply. From that moment, 
in the opinion of the world, you will stand 
self-convicted. Whether your reply be 
quibbUng and evasive, or liberal and in 
point, will be matter for the judgment of 
your peers ; — but if, when every possible 
idea of disrespect to that noble House (in 
whose honour and justice the nation im- 
pHcitly confides) is here most solemnly dis- 
claimed, you should endeavour to represent 
this charge as a contempt of their authority, 
and move their Lordships to censure the 
publisher of this paper, I then affirm that 
you support injustice by violence, that you 
are guilty of a heinous aggravation of your 
offence, and that you contribute your ut- 
most influence to promote, on the part of 
the highest court of judicature, a positive 
denial of justice to the nation. 

JUNIUS. 



LETTER LXIX. 



TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD 
CAMDEN. 1 

My Lord, 

I TURN with pleasure from that 
barren waste in which no salutary plant 
takes root, no verdure quickens, to a cha- 
racter fertile, as I willingly beheve, in every 
great and good qualification. I call upon 
you, in the name of the Enghsh nation, to 
stand forth in defence of the laws of your 
country, and to exert, in the cause of truth 
and justice, those great abihties, with which 
you were entrusted for the benefit of man- 
kind. To ascertain the facts set forth in 
the preceding paper, it may be necessary to 
call the persons, mentioned in the mittimus, 
to the bar of the House of Lords. ^ If a 
motion for that purpose should be rejected, 
we shall know what to think of lord 
Mansfield's innocence. The legal argu- 
ment is submitted to your Lordship's judg- 
ment. After the noble stand you made 



^ This Letter followed the preceding in the 
Public Advertiser of January 21, 1772. 

^ In the case of lord Mansfield's having bailed 
Eyre, lord Camden had openly expressed his 
opinion that the bail was illegal, and had given 
reason to expect that he would make it the sub- 



against lord MansfieM upon the question 
of libel, we did expect that you would not 
have suffered that matter to have remained 
undetermined. But it was said that lord 
chief justice Wilmot had been p-evailed 
upoji to vouch for an opinion of the late 
judge Yates, which was supposed to make 
against you ; and we admit of the excuse . 
When such detestable arts are employed to 
prejudge a question of right, it might have 
been imprudent, at that time, to have 
brought it to a decision. In the present 
instance you will have no such opposition 
to contend with. If there be a judge or 
lawyer of any note in Westminster Hall, 
who shall be daring enough to affirm that, 
according to the true intendment of the 
laws of England, a felon, taken with the 
maner, in flagrante delicto, is bailable ; or 
that the discretion of an English judge is 
merely arbitrary, and not governed by rules 
of law, — I should be glad to be acquainted 
with him. Whoever he be, I will take care 
that he shall not give you much trouble. 
Your Lordship's character assures me that 
you will assume that principal part, which 
belongs to you, in supporting the laws of 
England, against a wicked judge, who 
makes it the occupation of his hfe to mis- 
interpret and pervert them. If you dechne 
this honourable office, I fear it will be said 
that, for some months past, you have kept 
too much company with the duke of 
Grafton. When the contest turns upon 
the interpretation of the laws, you cannot, 
without a formal surrender of all your 
reputation, yield the post of honour even 
to lord Chatham. Considering the situa- 
tion and abiliries of lord ^Mansfield, I do 
not scruple to affirm, with the most solemn 
appeal to God for my sincerity, that, in ray 
judgment, he is the very worst and most 
dangerous man in the kingdom. Thus far 
I have done my duty in endeavouring to 
bring him to punishment. But mine is an 
inferior, ministerial office in the temple of 



ject of a parliamentary enquiry on the com- 
mencement of the ensuing session. Junius refers 
to this generally conceived pledge, and strives 
(though the effort was in vain) to induce his 
Lordship to redeem it. — Edit. 
22 



338 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



justice. — I have bound the victim, and 
dragged him to the altar. 

JUNIUS. 



The Reverend Mr John Home 
having, with his usual veracity arid honest 
industry, circulated a report that Junius, 
in a letter to the Supporters of the Bill of 
Rights, had warmly declared himself in 
favour of long parliaments and rotten 
boroughs, it is thought necessary to submit 
to the public the following extract from his 
letter to John Wilkes, Esq., dated the 7th 
of September, 1771, and laid before the 
Society on the 24th of the same month. 1 

' With regard to the several articles, taken 
separately, I own I am concerned to see 
that the great condition, which ought to 
be the sine qua non of parliamentary quali- 
fication, — which ought to be the basis (as 
it assuredly will be the only support) of 
every barrier raised in defence of the con- 
stitution, I mean a declaration upon oath 
to shorten the duration of parliaments, is 
reduced to the fourth rank in the esteem of 
the Society ; and, even in that place, far 
from being insisted on with firmness and 
vehemence, seems to have been particu- 
larly slighted in the expression, — You shall 
endeavour to restore annual parliaments ! 
— Are these the terms which men, who 
are in earnest, make use of, when the salus 
reipublicce is at stake? — 1 expected other 
language from Mr Wilkes. — Besides my 
objection in point of form, I disapprove 
highly of the meaning of the fourth article 
as it stands. Whenever the question shall 
be seriously agitated, I will endeavour 
(and if I live will assuredly attempt it) to 
convince the English nation, by arguments 
to 77iy understanding unanswerable, that 
they ought to insist upon a triennial, and 
banish the idea of an annual parliament. 
* * * * I am convinced that, if shortening 
the duration of parliaments (which in effect 
is keeping the representative under the rod 



^ This letter is given entire in the private cor- 
respondence between Junius and Mr Wilkes. 
See Private Letters, No. 66.— Edit. 



of the constituent) be not made the basis 
of our new parliamentary jurisprudence, 
other checks or improvements signify no- 
thing. On the contrary, if this be made 
the foundation, other measures may come 
in aid, and, as auxiliaries, be of considera- 
ble advantage. Lord Chatham's project, 
for instance, of increasing the number of 
knights of shires, appears to me admirable. 
* * * * As to cutting away the rotten 
boroughs, I am as much offended as any 
man at seeing so many of them under the 
direct influence of the crown, or at the dis- 
posal of private persons. Yet, I own, I 
have both doubts and apprehensions in 
regard to the remedy you propose. I shall 
be charged perhaps with an unusual want 
of political intrepidity, when I honesUy 
confess to you, that I am startled at the 
idea of so extensive an amputation. — In the 
first place, I question the power, de jure, of 
the legislature to disfranchise a number of 
boroughs, upon the general ground of im- 
proving the constitution. There cannot be 
a doctrine more fatal to the liberty and 
property we are contending for, than that, 
which confounds the idea of a stipreme and 
an arbitrary legislature. I need not point- 
out to you the fatal purposes, to which it 
has been, and may be applied. If we are 
sincere in the political creed we profess, 
there are many things which we ought to 
afiirm cannot be done by King, Lords, 
and Commons. Among these I reckon 
the disfranchising of boroughs with a 
general view to improvement. 1 consider 
it as equivalent to robbing the parties con- 
cerned of their freehold, of their birthright. 
I say, that, although this birthright may be 
forfeited, or the exercise of it suspended, in 
particular cases, it cannot be taken away, 
by a general law, for any real or pretended 
purpose of improving the constitution. 
Supposing the attempt made, I am per- 
suaded you cannot mean that either king 
or lords should take an active part in it. 
A bill, which only touches the representa- 
tion of the people, must originate in the 
House of Commons. In the formation 
and mode of passing it, the exclusive right 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



339 



of the Commons must be asserted as scru- 
pulously, as in the case of a money-bill. 
Now, Sir, I should be glad to know by 
what kind of reasoning it can be proved, 
that there is a power vested in the repre- 
sentative to destroy his immediate consti- 
tuent. From whence could he possibly 
derive it ? A courtier, I know, will be 
ready enough to maintain the affirmative. 
The doctrine suits him exactly, because it 
gives an unlimited operation to the iniiu- 
ence of the crown. But we, Mr Wilkes, 
ought to hold a different language. It is 
no answer to me to say, that the bill, when 
it passes the House of Commons, is the 
act of the majority, and not of the repre- 
sentatives of the particular boroughs con- 
cerned. If the majority can disfranchise 
ten boroughs, why not twenty, why not the 
whole kingdom ? Why should not they 
make their own seats in parliament for life? 
• — When the Septennial Act passed, the 
legislature did what, apparently and pal- 
pably, they had no power to do ; but they 
did more than people in general were 
aware of : they, in effect, disfranchised the 
whole kingdom for four years. 

' For argument's sake, I will now sup- 
pose, that the expediency of the measure 
and the power of parliament are unques- 
tionable. Still you will find an insur- 
mountable difficulty in the execution. 
When all your instruments of amputation 
are prepared, v*'hen tlie unhappy patient 
hes bound at your feet, without the possi- 
bility of resistance, by what infallible rule 



will you direct the operation ? — When you 
propose to cut away the rotten parts, can 
you tell us what parts are perfectly sound f 
— Are there any certain limits, in fact or 
theory, to inform you at what point you 
must stop, at what point the mortifica- 
tion ends ? To a man so capable of ob- 
servation and reflection as you are, it is 
unnecessary to say all that might be said 
upon the subject. Besides that I approve 
highly of lord Chatham's idea of infusing 
a portio7i of new health into the constitu- 
tion to enable it to bear its infirmities (a 
brilliant expression, and full of intrinsic 
wisdom), other reasons concur in persuading 
me to adopt it. I have no objection,' Sac. 

The man, who fairly and completely 
answers this argument, shall have my 
thanks and my applause. My heart is 
already with him. — I am ready to be con- 
verted. — I admire his morality, and would 
gladly subscribe to the articles of his faith. 
Grateful, as I am, to the GOOD being, 
whose bounty has imparted to me this rea- 
soning intellect, whatever it is, I hold my- 
self proportionably indebted to him, from 
whose enlightened understanding another 
ray of knowledge communicates to mine. 
But neither should I think the most exalted 
faculties of the human mind, a gift worthy 
of the divinity ; nor any assistance in the 
improvement of them, a subject of grati- 
tude to my fellow-creature, if I were not 
satisfied, that really to inform the under- 
standing corrects and enlarges the heart. 
JUNIUS. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



JUNIUS. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



JUNIUS 



LETTER I. 

FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

28 April, -176J. 

Dictaticru, qiiam in suiiimis reipitbliccB afigiis- 
tiis acceperat, per pacein continJtata, liberta- 
te7}i /regit ; donee ill inn conversits ift rabietn 

popnljis et dii nltores de saxo Tarpeio de- 

jece nint. — L i v y . 

The bravest and freest nations 
have sometimes submitted to a temporary 
surrender of their liberties, in order to 
establish them for ever. At a crisis of pub- 
lic calamity or danger, the prudence of the 
state placed a confidence in the virtue of 
some distinguished citizen, and gave him 
power sufficient to preserve or to oppress 
his country. Such was the Roman dicta- 
tor, and while his office was confined to a 
short period, and only applied as a remedy 
to the disasters of an unsuccessful war, it 
was usually attended with the most import- 
ant advantages, and left no dangerous 
precedent behind. The dictator, finding 
employment for all his activity in repulsing 
a foreign invasion, had but little time to 
contrive the ruin of his own country, and 
his ambition was nobly satisfied by the 
honour of a triumph, and the applause of 
his fellow-citizens. But as soon as this 
wise institution was corrupted, when that 
unlimited trust of power, which should 



^ This severe invective is aimed against the 
late lord Chatham, formerly the right honourable 



have been reserved for conjunctures of 
more than ordinary difficulty and hazard, 
was without necessity committed to one 
man's uncertain moderation, what conse- 
quence could be expected but that the 
people should pay the dearest price for 
their simphcity, nor ever resume those 
rights, which they could vainly imagine 
were more secure in the hands of a single 
man, than where the laws and constitution 
had placed them. 

Without any uncommon depravity of 
mind, a man so trusted might lose all ideas 
of public principle or gratitude, and not 
unreasonably exert himself to perpetuate a 
power, which he saw his fellow-citizens 
weak and abject enough to surrender to him. 
But if, instead of a man of a common 
mixed character, whose vices might be re- 
deemed by some appearance of virtue and 
generosity, it should have unfortunately 
happened that a nation had placed all their 
confidence in a man purely and perfectly 
bad ; if a great and good prince, by some 
fatal delusion, had made choice of such a 
man for his first minister, and had dele- 
gated all his authority to him, what security 
would that nation have for its freedom, or 
that prince for his crown ? The history of 
every nation, that once had a claim to 
liberty, will tell us what w^ould be the pro- 
gress of such a traitor, and what the pro- 
bable event of his crimes. •■■ 

W. Pitt. The reader, by a perusal of the pre- 
ceding letters, is already acquainted with the 



342 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUxNIUS. 



Let us suppose him arrived at that 
moment, at which he might see himself 
within reach of the great object, to which 
all the artifices, the intrigues, the hypocrisy, 
and the impudence of his past life were 
directed. On the point of having the whole 
power of the crown committed to him, 
what would be his conduct ? an affectation 
of prostrate humihty in the closet, but a 
lordly dictation of terms to the people, by 
whose interest he had been supported, by 
whose fortunes he had subsisted. Has he 
a brother? that brother must be sacrificed. ^ 
Has he a rancorous enemy? that enemy 
must be promoted. ^ Have years of his 
life been spent in declaiming against the 
pernicious influence of a favourite ? that 
favourite must be taken to his bosom, and 
made the only partner of his power.^ But 
it is in the natural course of things that a 
despotic power, which of itself violates 
every principle of a free constitution, should 
be acquired by means, which equally vio- 

utter aversion which Junius at first felt for this 
nobleman, on various political accounts, and 
especially on the subject of the American dis- 
pute. His aversion, however, softened as their 
political views approximated, and was at length 
converted into approbation and eulogy. See for 
a further explanation, the note to Miscellaneous 
Letter, No. XII., p. 364.— Edit. 

^ Lord Temple, brother-in-law to lord Chat- 
ham. They resigned their respective offices, the 
former of privy seal, and the latter of principal 
secretary of state, in October 1761. Lord Tem- 
ple was succeeded by the duke of Bedford ; and 
upon lord Chatham's forming his administration 
in 1766, he took the post of privy seal himself. 
Lord Temple did not take part in any ministry 
arranged subsequent to his resignation of that 
office, and died Sept. 11, 1779- 

The following letter from lord C. before his 
promotion to the peerage, explains the motives 
of their joint resignation; it was addressed to a 
friend in the city : — 

* Dear Sir, 

' Finding, to my great surprise, that the 
cause and manner of my resigning the seals is 
grossly misrepresented in the city, as well as 
that the most gracious ainAsJ>onta7teous marks of 
his Majesty's approbation of my services, which 
marks followed my resignation, have been in- 
famously traduced as a bargain foi my forsaking 
the public, I am under a necessity of declaring 
the truth of both these facts, in a manner which 
I am sure no gentleman will contradict. A 
difference of opinion with regard to measures to 



late every principle of honour and morality. 
The office of a grand Vizir is inconsistent 
with a limited monarchy, and can never 
subsist long but by its destruction. The 
same measures by which an abandoned 
profligate is advanced to power, must be 
observed to maintain him in it. The prin- 
cipal nobility, who might disdain to submit 
to the upstart insolence of a dictator, must 
be removed from every post of honour and 
authority ; all pubhc employments must be 
filled with a despicable set of creatures, 
who having neither experience nor capacity, 
nor any weight or respect in their own per- 
sons, will necessarily derive all their little 
busy importance from him. As the abso- 
lute destruction of the constitution of his 
country would be his great object, to be 
consistent with that design he must exert 
himself to weaken and impoverish every 
rank and order of the community, which 
by the nature of their property, and the 
degree of their wealth, might have a par- 



be taken against Spain, of the highest import- 
ance to the honour of the crown, and to the most 
essential national interests, and this founded on 
what Spain had already done, not on what that 
court may further intend to do, was the cause of 
my resigning the seals. Lord Temple and I sub- 
mitted in writing, and signed by us, our most 
humble sentiments to his Majesty, which being 
overruled by the united opinion of all the rest of 
the king's servants, I resigned the seals on Mon- 
day the 5th of this month, in order to not remain 
responsible for measures which I was no longer 
allowed to guide. Most gracious public marks 
of his Majesty's approbation of my services fol- 
lowed my resignation : they are unmerited and 
unsolicited, and I shall ever be proud to have 
received them from the best of sovereigns. 

' I will now only add, my dear Sir, that I 
have explained these matters only for the hon- 
our of truth, not in any view to court return of 
confidence from any man, who, with a credulity 
as weak as it is injurious, has thought fit hastily 
to withdraw his good opinion from one who has 
served his country with fidelity and success, and 
who justly reveres the upright and candid judg- 
ment of it ; httle solicitous about the censures 
of the capricious and the ungenerous : accept 
my sincerest acknowledgments for all your kind 
friendship, and believe me ever with truth and 
esteem, 

' My dear Sir, 
'Oct. 14, 1761. ' Your faithful friend, 

' V/. PITT.'— Edit. 

= The duke of Bedford.— Edit. 

3 Lord Bute. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



343 



ticular interest in the support of the estab- 
lished government, as well as power to 
oppose any treacherous attempts against it. 
The landed estate must be oppressed ; the 
rights of the merchant must be arbitrarily- 
invaded, and his property forced from him 
by main force, without even the form of a 
legal proceeding. It will assist him much, 
if he can contribute to the destruction of 
the poor by continuing the most burthen- 
some taxes upon the main articles of their 
subsistence. He must also take advantage 
of any favourable conjuncture to try how- 
far the nation will bear to see the estabhshed 
laws suspended by proclamation, and upon 
such occasions he must not be without an 
apostate lawyer, weak enough to sacrifice 
his own character, and base enough to be- 
tray the laws of his country.! 

These are but a few of the pernicious 
practices by which a traitor may be known, 
by which a free people may be enslaved. 
But the master-piece of his treachery, and 
the surest of answering all his purposes, 
would be, if possible, to foment such dis- 
cord between the mother-country and her 
colonies, as may leave them both an easier 
prey to his own dark machinations. With 
this patriotic view he will be ready to declare 
himself the patron of sedition, and a zealous 
advocate for rebelUon. His doctrines will 
correspond with the proceedings of the 



^ This subject is fully explained in many parts 
of the Letters of Junius, and in the notes now 
subjoined to them. The character alluded to 
is earl Camden, at that time lord chancellor. — 
Edit. 

^ Lord Chatham, then Mr Pitt, opposed Mr 
George Grenville's Stamp Act, and denied the 
right of the parliament of Great Britain to legis- 
late for America. — Edit. 

3 Poplicola, the writer of this reply, b}' some 
means or other mistook the real signature, which 
instead of being C D. was W. D. The letter is 
dated from Clifton, and is obviously from the 
pen of sir W. Draper ; affording a singular proof 
that the Knight of the Bath and Junius were 
political opponents under signatures mutually 
unknown, and so far back as May 1767. The 
subject of sir William's observations was a de- 
fence of lord Chatham against some strong 
observations made upon his character by Mr 
Wilkes, in a letter addressed to the duke of 
Grafton, relative to the illegal proceedings of 
the earl of Halifax. The letter is dated Paris, 



people he protects, and if by his assistance 
they can obtain a victory over the supreme 
legislature of the empire, he will consider 
that victory as an important step towards 
the advancement of his main design. 2 
I Such, Sir, in any free state, would pro- 
bably be the conduct and character of a man 
unnecessarily trusted with exorbitant power. 
He must either succeed in establishing a 
tyranny or perish. I cannot without horror 
suppose it possible that this our native 
country should ever be at the mercy of so 
I black a villain. But if the case should 
I happen hereafter, I hope the British people 
i will not be so abandoned by Providence, 
j as not to open their eyes time enough to 
save themselves from destruction ; and 
though we have no Tarpeian rock for the 
immediate punishment of treason, yet we 
have impeachments, and a gibbet is not too 
honourable a situation for the carcase of a 
traitor. 

POPLICOLA. 



LETTER II. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 28 May, 1767. 

Your correspondent C. D.^ pro- 
fesses to undeceive the pubhc with respect 



Dec. 12, 1763, and the part chiefly adverted to 
is the following : — 

' I believe that the flinty heart of lord Chatham 
has known the sweets of private friendship, and 
the fine feelings of humanity, as little as even 
lord Mansfield. They are both formed to be 
admired, not beloved. A proud, insolent, over- 
bearing, ambitious man is always full of the ideas 
of his own importance, and vainly imagines him- 
self superior to the equality necessary among 
real friends, in all the moments of true enjoy- 
ment. Friendship is too pure a pleasure for a 
mind cankered with ambition, or the lust of 
power and grandeur. Lord Chatham declared 
in parliament the strongest attachment to lord 
Temple, one of the greatest characters our 
country could ever boast, and said he ivojild live 
a?id die ivith /lis 7ioble brother. He has re- 
ceived obligations of the first magnitude from 
that noble brother, yet what trace of gratitude or 
of friendship was ever found in any part of his 
conduct ? and has he not now declared the most 
open variance, and even hostility ? I have had 



344 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to some reflections thrown out upon the 
earl of Chatham in Mr Wilkes's letter to 



as warm and express declarations of regard as 
could be made by this marble-hearted friend, 
and Mr Pitt had no doubt his views in even 
feeding me with flattery from time to time ; on 
occasions too where candour and indulgence 
were all I could claim. He may remember the 
compliments he paid me on two certain poems in 
the year 1754. If I were to take the declarations 
made by himself and the late Mr Potter a la 
lettre, they were more charmed with those verses 
after the ninety-ninth reading, than after the 
first ; so that from this circumstance, as well as 
a few of his speeches in parliament, it seems to 
be likewise true of the first orator, or rather the 
first comedian, of our age, 7ion displiciusse illi 
jocos, sed 71071 cofitigisse. 

' I will now submit to your Grace, if there was 
not something peculiarly base and perfidious in 
Mr Pitt's calling me a blasphemer of 77ty God for 
those very verses, at a time when I was absent, 
and dangerously ill from an affair of honour. 
The charge too he knew was false, for the whole 
ridicule of those two pieces was confined to cer- 
tain mysteries, which formerly the Tuiplaced ^cad. 
in!j>enszoned Mr Pitt did not think himself obliged 
even to affect to believe. He added another 
charge equally unjust, that I was the libeller of 
i)iy khig, though he was sensible that I never 
wrote a single line disrespectful to the sacred 
person of my sovereign, but had only attacked 
the despotism of his ministers, with the spirit 
becoming a good subject, and zealous friend of 
his country. The reason of this perfidy was 
plain. He was then beginning to pay homage 
to the Scottish idol, and I was the most accept- 
able sacrifice he could ofifer at the shrine of Bute. 
History scarcely gives so remarkable a change. 
He was a few years ago the mad, seditious 
tribune of the people, insulting his sovereign, 
even in his capital city ; now he is the abject, 
crouching deputy of the proud Scot, who he 
declared in parliament wrtw/^a^TO/Via'iCW, a?id held 
principles i7icotnpatible with freedo77t ; a most 
ridiculous character surely for a statesman, and 
the subject of a free kingdom, but the proper 
composition for 3. favourite. Was it possible for 
me after this to write a suppliant letter to lord 
Chatham ? I am the first to pronounce myself 
most unworthy of a pardon, if I could have ob- 
tained it on those terms. 

' Although I declare, my Lord, that the con- 
scious pride of virtue makes me look down with 
contempt on a man, who could be guilty of this 
baseness, who could in the lobby declare that I 
must be supported, and in the House on the 
same day desert and revile me, yet I will on 
every occasion do justice to the minister. He 
has served the public in all those points, where 
the good of the nation coincided with his own 
private views ; and in no other. I venerate the 
memory of the secretary, and I think it an 
honour to mj'self that I steadily supported in 
parliament an administration, the most successful 
we ever had, and which carried the glory of the 



the duke of Grafton. Without undertaking 
the defence of that gentleman's conduct or 

nation to the highest pitch in every part of the 
world. He found his country almost in despair. 
He raised the noble spirit of England, and 
strained every nerve against our enemies. His 
plans, when in power, were always great, though 
in direct opposition to the declarations of his 
whole life, when out of power. The invincible 
bravery of the British troops gave success even 
to the most rash, the most extravagant, the most 
desperate of his projects. He saw early the 
hostile intentions of Spain, and if the writte7t 
advice had been followed, a very few weeks had 
then probably closed the last general war ; 
although the merit of that advice was more the 
merit of his 7wble brother, than his own. After 
the omnipotence of lord Bute in 1761 had forced 
Mr Pitt to retire from his Majesty's councils, 
and the cause was declared by himself to be our 
conduct relative to Spain, I had the happiness of 
setting that affair in so clear and advantageous a 
light, that he expressed the most entire satis- 
faction, and particular obligations to my friend- 
ship. I do not, however, make this a claim of 
merit to Mr Pitt. It was my duty, from the 
peculiar advantages of information I then had.' 
In answer to these strictures sir William Draper 
in the letter subscribed W. D., and which is too 
long to be copied verbatim, quotes several of 
Mr Wilkes's previous declarations in favour of 
lord Chatham, while Mr Pitt, and concludes as 
follows : — 

' The letter asserts also that lord Chatham is 
now the abject, crouching deputy of lord Bute, 
who he declared in parliament wanted wisdom, 
and held principles incompatible with freedom. 
The world knows nothing of this abject, crouch- 
ing deputed minister, but from Mr Wilkes's 
single affirmation ; but we all know that his 
Majesty has been pleased to call lord Chatham 
again to the ministry : if lord Bute supports him 
in it, he gives the noblestproof of generosity and 
greatness of soul, and has revenged himself in 
the finest manner upon lord Chatham for those 
expressions, and affords the strongest proof that 
he does not want wisdom, or hold principles in- 
compatible with freedom. What greater proof 
of wisdom can he give, than in supporting that 
person who is the most capable of doing good to 
his country, and has upon all occasions approved 
himself the most zealous protector of its liberties? 
But I beg pardon ; upon a late occasion, indeed, 
lord Chatham showed himself to be no friend to 
liberty ; he was so very tyrannical, as well as 
lord Camden, that he denied some traders the 
right, liberty, and privilege of starving his fellow- 
citizens, by exporting all the corn out of the 
kingdom, for which he has met with his reward, 
and been as much abused as if he himself had been 
guilty of starving them. Is there no Tarpeian 
rock for such a tyrant ? 

' Mr Wilkes has now done with lord Chatham, • 
leaving him to the poor consolation of a place, a 
peerage, and a pension ; for which, he says, he 
has sold the confidence of a great nation. But I 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



345 



character, permit me to observe that he was 
the instrument, and a useful one to the 
party, therefore should not have been sacri- 
ficed by it. He served them perhaps with 
too much zeal ; but such is the reward, 
which the tools of faction usually receive, 
and in some measure deserve, when they 
are imprudent enough to hazard every 
thing in support of other men's ambition. 

I cannot admit, that because Mr Pitt 
was respected and honoured a few years 
ago, the earl of Chatham therefore deserves 
to be so now ; or that a description, which 
might have suited him at one part of his 
life, must of necessity be the only one ap- 
phcable to him at another. It is barely 
possible, that a very honest commoner may 
become a very corrupt and worthless peer ; 
and I am incHned to suspect that Mr C. D. 
will find but few people credulous enough 
to believe that either Mr Pitt or Mr Pult- 
ney, when they accepted of a title, did not, 
by that action, betray their friends, their 
country, and, in every honourable sense, 
themselves. Mr C. D. wilfully misrepre- 
sents the cause of that censure, which was 
very justly thrown upon lord Chatham, 
when the exportation of corn was prohibited 
by proclamation. The measure itself was 
necessary, and the more necessary from the 
scandalous delay of the ministry in calling 
the parliament together ; but to maintain 
that the proclamation was legal, and that 
there was a suspending power lodged in the 
crown, was such an outrage to the common 
sense of mankind, and such a daring attack 
upon the constitution, as a free people 

cannot take leave of, or have done with, Mr 
Wilkes, without making a few observations upon 
this paragraph : Mr Wilkes is a great jester ; in 
this place he cannot possibly be serious ; for as 
to the pension, I think I cannot explain it better 
to my countrymen, than in Mr Wilkes's own 
words, August 12, 1762. 

' " 1 must, in compliance with a few vulgar 
writers, call the inadequate reward given to ISIr 
Pitt, for as great services as ever were performed 
by a subject, a pension, although the grant is not 
during pleasure, and therefore cannot create any 
undue, unconstitutional influence. In the same 
light we are to consider the dukes of Cumber- 
land's and Marlborough's, prince Ferdinand's, 
and admiral Havvke's, Mr Onslow's, &c. &c. 
&c. I was going to call it the king's gold box ; 



ought never to forgive. The man, who 
maintained those doctrines, ought to have 
had the Tarpeian rock, or a gibbet, for his 
reward. Another gentleman, upon that 
occasion, had spirit and patriotism enough 
to declare, even in a respectable assembly, 
that, when he advised the proclamation, he 
did it with the strongest conviction of its 
being illegal ; but he rested his defence 
upon the unavoidable necessity of the case, 
and submitted himself to the judgment of 
his country. This noble conduct deserved 
the applause and gratitude of the nation, 
while that of the earl of Chatham, and his 
miserable understrappers, deserved nothing 
but detestation and contempt. 

POPLICOLA. 



LETTER III. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

24 June, 1767. 

Accedere inatrem muliebri hiipotentid ; scr- 
vie7idum fceinina^ duobusque iiisuper nebu- 
lojiibus, qjii 7emp7iblican hiteriju pre7Jia?it, 
qj(andoque distrahant. 

Tacitus 1° Annalium. 

The uncertain state of poHtics in 
this country sets all the speculations of the 
press at defiance. To talk of modern 
ministers, or to examine their conduct, 
would be to reason without data ; for 
whether it be owing to the real simple in- 
nocence of doing nothing, or to a happy 



for Mr Pitt having before received the most 
o'oliging marks of regard from the public, the 
testimony of his sovereign only remained want- 
ing." 

"' Now as Mr Wilkes has so fully set forth the 
nature of this pension, I cannot think it will at 
all lessen the confidence of the nation in lord 
Chatham : it may very possibly lessen their con- 
fidence in Mr Wilkes, who has contradicted him- 
self so furiously, and perhaps destroy that idea of 
consistency which the gentleman boasts of in his 
letter to the duke of Grafton ; where he a.ssures 
his Grace, that '" however unfashionable such a 
declaration may be, consistency shall never de- 
part from his character." The reader has the 
proofs before him, and will j udge of it accordingly. 
W. D.'— Edit. 



346 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



mysteriousness in concealing their activity, 
we know as little of the services they have 
performed, since it became their lot to ap- 
pear in the gazette, as we did of their per- 
sons or characters before. They seem to 
have come together by a sort of fortuitous 
concourse, and have hitherto done nothing 
else but jumble and jostle one another, 
without being able to settle into any one 
regular or consistent figure. I am not 
however such an atheist in politics as to 
suppose that there is not somewhere an 
original creating cause, which drew these 
atoms forth into existence ; but it seems 
the utmost skill and cunning of that secret 
governing hand could go no further. To 
create or foment confusion, to sacrifice the 
honour of a king, or to destroy the happi- 
ness of a nation, requires no talent, but a 
natural itch for doing mischief. We have 
seen it performed for years successively, 
with a wantonness of triumph, by a man 
who had neither abilities nor personal in- 
terest, nor even common personal courage. ^ 
It has been possible for a notorious coward, 
skulking imder a petticoat, to make a great 
nation the prey of his avarice and ambition. 
But I trust the time is not very distant 
when we shall see him dragged forth from 
his retirement, and forced to answer severely 
for all the mischiefs he hath brought upon 
us. 

It is worth while to consider, though 
perhaps not safe to point out, by what arts 
it hath been possible for him to maintain 
himself so long in power, and to skreen 
himself from national justice- Some of 
them have been obvious enough ; the rest 
may without difficulty be guessed at. But 
whatever they are, it is not above a twelve- 
month ago, since they might have all been 
defeated, and the venomous spider itself 
caught and trampled on in its own webs. 
It was then his good fortune to corrupt one 
man, from whom we least of all expected 
so base an apostacy.2 Who indeed could 

^ The earl of Bute.— Edit. 
^ The earl of Chatham. — Edit. 
3 Lord Townshend, and his brother, the Hon- 
ourable Charles Townshend, the former just 



have suspected, that it should ever consist 
with the spirit or understanding of that 
person, to accept of a share of power under 
a pernicious court minion, whom he him- 
self had affected to detest or despise, as 
much as he knew he was detested and 
despised by the whole nation? I will not 
censure him for the avarice of a pension, 
nor the melancholy ambition of a title. 
These were objects which he perhaps 
looked up to, though the rest of the 
world thought them far beneath his accept- 
ance. But, to become the stalking-horse 
of a stallion ; to shake hands with a Scotch- 
man at the hazard of catching all his in- 
famy; to fight under his auspices against 
the constitution ; and to receive the word 
from him, prerogative and a thistle ; (by 
the once respected name of Pit !) it is even 
below contempt. But it seems that this 
unhappy country had long enough been 
distracted by their divisions, and in the last 
instance was to be oppressed by their union. 
May that union, honourable as it is, subsist' 
for ever ! may they continue to smell at 
one thistle, and not be separated even in 
death ! 

ANTI SEJANUS, Jun. 



LETTER IV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

St James's Coffee-house, 
Sir, 25 Aug. T-'jb']. 

I HAVE been some time in the 
country, which has prevented your hearing 
sooner from me. I find you and your 
brother printers have got greatly into a 
sort of knack of stuffing your papers with 
flummery upon two certain brothers, ^ who 
are labour-in-vain endeavouring to force 
themselves out of the world's contempt. I 
have great good will to you, and hope you 
are well paid for this sort of nonsense, as 
indeed you ought to be, for it certainly dis- 



appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and the 
latter at this time chancellor of the Exchequer, — 
Edit. 



MISCFXLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



347 



graces your paper. It is in vain that your 
friends assure the coffee-house, that these 
things are wrote by the brothers themselves; 
that you beUeve no more of them than the 
rest of the world does ; and that you only 
put them in to show your extreme impar- 
tiality, which sometimes obliges you to 
insert the most improbable stories ; I would 
therefore advise you, as a friend, to give up 
this noble pair as enfaiis perdus. 

I am not a stranger to this par nobile 
fratruvi. I have served under the one, 
and have been forty times promised to be 
served by the other. I don't thinlc it possi- 
ble to characterize either without having 
recourse to the other ; but anybody who 
knows one of them, may easily obtain an 
idea of the other : Thus now ; suppose 
you acquainted with the chancellor, take 
away his ingenuity, and a something, that 
at times looks something like good nature, 
but it is not, and you have the direct and 
actual character of the peer ; a boaster 
without spirit, and a pretender to wit with- 
out a grain of sense ; in a word, a vain- 
glorious idler without one single good 
quality of head or heart. I hope his affairs 

with lord • and Mr are the only 

instances of his setting out with unnecessary 
insolence, and ending with shameful tame- 
ness. But is such a man likely to please 
the brave Irish, whose hasty tempers, or 
whose blunders, may sometimes lead them 
into a quarrel ; but whose swords always 
carry them through it. Are these the pair, 
who are to give stability to a wavering 
favourite, and permanency to a locum 
tenens administration ? Alas ! alas ! 

Non tali au.rilio, nee defetisoribus istis 
Tempus eget : 

And is it by such a prop that Grafton 
thinks to stand, after throwing down his 
idol Pitt, at whose false altar he had before 
sacrificed his friends ? Is it for such a man 
that Conway foregoes the connexions of his 

^ I'he following answer to correspondents in 
the Public Advertiser of Sept. i6, identifies 
Junius to have been the writer of this letter. 
' Our corresponder.t C. will observe, that we 
have obeyed his directions in every particular, 



youth, and the friends of his best and 
ripest judgment. — O tempora ! O ?nores ! 
A FAITHFUL MONITOR. 



LETTER V.i 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, i6 SepL 1767. 

His Excellency the Lord- Lieuten- 
ant of Ireland, 2 is said to have a singular 
turn for portrait painting, which he will- 
ingly employs in the service of his friends. 
He performs gratis, and seldom gives them 
the trouble of sitting for their pictures. 
But I believe the talents of this ingenious 
nobleman never had so fair an occasion 
of being employed to advantage as at pre- 
sent. It happens very fortunately for him, 
that he has now a set of friends, who seem 
intended by nature for the subjects of such 
a pencil. In delineating their features to 
the public, he will have an equal oppor- 
tunity of displaying the delicacy of his 
hand, and, upon which he chiefly piques 
himself, the benevolence of his heart. But 
considering the importance of his present 
cares, I would fain endeavour to save him 
the labour of the design, in hopes that lie 
will bestow a few moments more upon the 
execution. Yet I will not presume to claim 
the merit of invention. The blindness of 
chance has done more for the painter, than 
the warmest fancy could have imagined, 
and has brought together such a groupe of 
figures, as, I believe, never appeared in real 
life, or upon canvas before. 

Your principal character, my Lord, is a 
young duke ^ mounted upon a lofty phae- 
ton ; his head grows giddy ; his horses 
carry him violently down a precipice, and a 
bloody carcase, the fatal emblem of Britan- 
nia, lies mangled under his wheels. By the 
side of this furious charioteer sits Caution 



and we shall always pay the utmost attention 
to whatever comes from so masterly a pen.' — 
Edit. 

^ Lord Townshend. — Edit. 

3 "J'he duke of Grafton. — Edit. 



348 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



without foresight, 1 a motley thing, half mili- 
tary, scarce civil. He too would guide, but, 
let who will drive, is determined to have a 
seat in the carriage. If it be possible, my 
Lord, give him to us in the attitude of an 
orator eating the end of a period, which 
may begin with, / did not say / woidd 
^pledge MYj-^//^The rest he eats. 

Your next figure must bear the port and 
habit of a judge. The laws of England 
under his feet, and before his distorted 
vision a dagger, which he calls the law of 
nature, and which marshals him the way 
to the murder of the constitution.^ 

In such good company, the respectable 
president of the council cannot possibly be 
omitted.^ A reasonable number of decrees 
must be piled up behind him, with the 
word REVERSED in capital letters upon each 
of them ; and out of his decent lips a com- 
pliment a la Tilbtiry, Hell and d n 

blast you all. ^ ^ * ^ ^ 

There is still a young man, my Lord, 
who I ihink will make a capital figure in 
the piece. His features are too happily 
marked to be mistaken. A single line of 
his face will be sufficient to give us the heir- 
apparent of Loyola and all the College. 
A little more of the devil, 7ny Lord, if you 
please^ aboitt the eyebrows; that's enough; 
a perfect Malagrida I protest /'^ So much 
for his person ; and as for his mind, a 
blinking bull-dog ^ placed near him, will 
form a very natural type of all his good 
qualities. 

These are the figures, which are to come 



"^ Mr Conway, secretary of state for the north- 
ern department. — Edit. 

^ Lord Camden. A scarcity of grain having 
been experienced during the recess, government 
had taken upon itself to stop the exportation of 
corn, in defiance of an act of parliament that 
granted a bounty for exporting it. The legality 
of this measure of a proclamation having been 
questioned, lord Camden maintained that in a 
case of necessity, the crown was possessed of a 
legal power to suspend the operation of an act 
of the legislature. See this subject further 
touched upon in Letter LX. — Edit. 

3 Lord Northington, formerly lord chancellor, 
one or two of whose decrees had, at the above 
period, been reversed ; a circumstance, how- 
ever, which may possibly be as attributable to 
his not having sufficiently applied himself to the 



forward to the front of the piece. Your 
friendship for the earl of Bute will naturally 
secure a corner in the retirement for him 
and his curtain. Provided you discover 
him ***** 6 

If there are still any vacancies in the 
canvas, you will easily fill them up with fix- 
tures or still hfe. You may show us half a 
paymaster, for instance, with a paper stuck 
upon the globe of his eye, and a label out 
of his mouth, No, Sir, J am of t'other side, 
Sir. How I lament that sounds cannot be 
conveyed to the eye ! '' 

You may give us a commander-in-chief 8 
and a secretary at war ^ seeming to pull at 
two ends of a rope ; while a slip-knot in 
the middle may really strangle three -fourths 
of the army ; or a lunatic brandishing a 
crutch, 10 or bawling through a grate, or 
writing with desperate charcoal a letter to 
North America ; or a Scotch secretary 
teaching the Irish people the true pro- 
nunciation of the English language. That 
barbarous people are but httle accustomed 
to figures of oratory, so that you may re- 
present him in any attitude you think pro- 
per, from that of sir Gilbert Elliot ^^ down 
to governor Johnstone. These, however, 
are but the shghter ornaments of com- 
position, and so I leave them to the choice 
of your own luxurious fancy. 

The back-ground may be shadowed with 
the natural obscurity of Scotch clerks and 
Scotch secretaries, who may be itched out 
to the life, with one hand grasping a pen, 
the other rivetted in their respective * * 



cases in question, as to any natural deficiency 
of judgment. His manners had certainly not 
been studied in the refined school of lord Chester- 
field.— Edit. 

''• Lord Shelburne, father to the present mar- 
quis of Lansdown, at that time secretary of state 
for the southern department. — Edit. 

5 Col. Barre, then vice-treasurer of Ireland. — 
Edit. 

6 A lady, who was thought to have consider- 
able influence, is here alluded to — Edit. 

7 Lord North and Mr afterwards sir G. Cooke, 
were joint paymasters, the former of whom i^ 
ridiculed. — Edit. 

8 The marquis of Granby. — Edit. 

9 Lord Barrington. — Edit. 
^° Lord Chatham. — Edit. 

^^ At that time Irish secretary.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



3-,'-9 



* * * * * . Your southern writers 
are apt to rub their foreheads in the agony 
of composition ; but witli Scotchmen, the 
seat of inspiration lies in a lower place, 
which, while the furor is upon them, they 
lacerate without mercy. By this delect- 
able friction, their imaginations become as 
prurient as their * * * * * *, and the 
latter are reheved from one sort of matter 
while their brains are supplied with another. 
Every thing they write in short is polished 
ad imguem. 

But amidst all the license of your wit, my 
Lord, I must entreat you to remember that 
there is one character too high and too 
sacred even for the pencil of a peer, though 
your Lordship has formerly done business 
for the family. Besides, the attempt would 
be unnecessary. The true character of 
that great person is engraven in the hearts 
of the Irish nation ; and as to a false one, 
they need only take a survey of the person 
and manners of their chief governor, if, 
in the midst of their distresses, they can 
laugh at the perfect caricature of a king. 
CORREGGIO. 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 12 October, 1767. 

There has been for some time 



past a very curious altercation carried on 
through your paper between Philo Verita- 
tis and No Ghost. This altercation has 
hitherto been carried on like other political 
disputes, by affirmatives and negatives, 
I assertions and contradictions, good hits 
' and smart repartees. This is the kind of 
combat usually fought on, and indeed the 
only one adapted to, the field of a public 
paper. But I perceive, not without anxiety, 
that another species of battle is Hkely to 
take place between the two champions 
whom I have mentioned.^ In this I am 
too much concerned to remain neuter. I 
have courage enough to draw my pen upon 
any man, but I should be very unwilling to 
draw my sword ; the pop-gun of wit I can 
stand, but a pistol is what I dare not face. 
Somehow or other, I have taken it into my 
head, that the dull and heavy argument of 
a pistol-ball is more convincing than the 
most elaborate reasoning, or the keenest 
wit which can be delivered by a pen. 
Alas, Sir, what then shall I do? Shall I 
remain silent, whilst No Ghost affirms that 
the lord-lieutenant of Ireland is a coward, 
and Philo Vcritatis fd contra) declares 
him a brave and undaunted soldier ? — It is 
of little importance which side I am in- 
clined to from judgment. If I declare in 
favour of JP/^//(9 Veritaiis, I incur the danger 
of a pen, which he himself seems to think 



^ Vide Philo Veritatis his letter in this paper, 
of the sixth instant. The following extract from 
it will enable the reader the better to understand 
the allusions in the present letter. 

'That his Excellency the present lord-Iieu- 
tenant of Ireland commanded at Quebec, is in- 
disputable. Captain Schomber.s;, as gallant an 
officer as any in the navy, and who, with the 
brave captam Dean, burnt and destroyed the 
French fleet, had the honour to convey him up 
the Gulph of St Lawrence, where his Excellency 
multiplied his military glory ; and here I cannot 
omit an anecdote relating to his Lordship, which 
occurred at Dettingen in Germany. In the very 
heat of the carnage of that day, and amidst the 
horrors of almost universal desolation, a soldier, 
fighting near his Lordship's side, was killed by 
a cannon-ball ; part of his brains flew out, and 
some on his Lordship's clothes and in his face. 

The brave general G being near him, said, 

"My lord, this is terrible work to-day : " " So 
it is," replied his Lordship, wiping himself with 



great calmness ; "but one would imagine, gen- 
eral, this man had too much brains to be here," 
at the same time tears of manly pity filled his 
compassionate eyes. 

' Now if humanity, intrepidity', and (what the 
French justly distinguish by the name of) satig 
froid, be the characteristics of a valiant soldier, 
my favourite lord (and such I am proud to own 
himj can, as the lawyers say, make out, even 
from this single story, a good title, and does 
deserve (as I have before averred) to have his 
name inscribed in adamantine letters on a column 
of eternal fame ; and if Mr No Ghost disputes it, 
I (in the ancient style of the heralds) defy him : 
I accept his gauntlet, and stand forth his Lord- 
ship's avowed champion, though a bad one, 
ready to fight in his defence, either with pistol or 
pen, and desire No Ghost to accept of a Row- 
land for his Oliver in a scrap of Latin on my 
side. 

' Parturiimt monies ; nascetur ridiciclus 7nus. 
Bye bye, Mr No Ghost. 

' October 2. PHILO VERITATIS.'— Edit. 



350 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



very sharp ; indeed so sharp, as to beg of 
his opponent to lay it aside, and take up a 
pistol ; on the other hand, if I join with 
No Ghost, I have a pistol at my head, 
which may make a ghost of me. Thus 
circumstanced, I will not take either part, 
but offer myself as a friend to both, to 
measure the ground, give the word, and 
carry off the body of whichever shall fall in 
the field of honour. In this character I shall 
beg (previous to their engagement) to state 
a few points not yet decided between them, 
and which they have not yet carried far 
enough in discussion, to require the de- 
cision of powder and ball. Give me leave 
first (though I declare no prepossession in 
his favour) to compliment Philo Veritatis, 
the advocate for his Lordship's courage, on 
his own bravery, who, under a fictitious 
name, challenges with the utmost intre- 
pidity to single and mortal combat, a 
nameless opponent. I should spend some 
time, and take some pains, to turn this 
compliment and make it worthy of him, 
but that I dare say he is sufficiently ap- 
plauded already, by those to whom he has 
revealed himself, for such an unexampled 
piece of heroism. 

Now, to my purpose : Philo Veritatis 
asserts, that his hero, lord Townshend, 
gave proofs of his bravery at Minden and 
Quebec. No Ghost denies the fact, upon 
the presumed impossibility of his transport- 
ing himself from one of these places to 
the othei in the space of ten days, unless 
he could y^y, and that very fast too. Now 
flying being a quality which Philo Veritatis 
does not chuse to ascribe (whatever belief 
it might gain with the public) to his hero, 
answers this in somewhat of a new way : 
'This objection,' says he, 'has no weight, 
and is made only to inti'oduce a scrap of 
Latin and a witticism.' This may be a 
very good answer at cross purposes ; but 
is, I confess, a very whimsical one in the 
present case. Surely, Sir, this matter is 
not yet come so close to a point, as to re- 
quire the arbitration of a pistol. Let Philo 
Veritatis again (for he has once already 
done it) affirm, that the hero was pre- 



sent at both actions ; No Ghost denies it ; 
Philo gives the lie ; No Ghost knocks him 
down, and then the pistol enters as natur- 
ally as possible, and without the smallest 
breach of the rule which Horacr has laid 
down on this occasion : Nee Deus intersit, 
nisi dignus vindice nodus. 

No Ghost having denied that his Lord- 
ship was actually present at both places, 
Philo seems to fear lest we should doubt 
that he was at either : Minden he gives up ; 
but being resolved to prove that he was at 
Quebec, he infonus us that the brave cap- 
tain Schomberg had the honour of convey- 
ing him up the Gulph of St Lawrence, 
where his Lordship multiplied his glory. 
These are tlie words. It is not my business 
to make remarks ; but Philo will tell us 
where this multiplication table may be 
found ; and I would recommend his Lord- 
ship to study it most attentively ; he need 
go no further in this kind of arithmetic ; the 
next rule will be quite unnecessary, as I 
presume no one will desire to divide with 
his Lordship. Now, if I guess right, the 
No Ghost will not deny that the brave 
Schomberg conveyed him up the gulph, and 
therefore this does not call very loudly for 
the pistol. Every one will acknowledge 
that lord Townshend was at Quebec ; for 
every one remembers his letter from thence ; 
and perhaps Philo can tell who the secre- 
tary was. 

To this multiplication ofgloryP/^/Zf? makes 
an additioft of an anecdote, which, as he 
says, occurred to his Lordship in Germany ; 
indeed, occurred! an anecdote occurred ; a 
curious occurrence it was. First let us see 
the inference which Philo draws from, and 
then we shall relate the occtirrence itself. 
It is, that the humanity of his favourite 
Lord (for such he is proud to own him) is 
established by it. The occtirrence is, that a 
soldier being killed near, his brains were 
scattered upon his Lordship's clothes. A 
stander-by remarks, ' that this is terrible 
w^ork." 'True,' says his Lordship, 'but 
one would have thought this fellow had too 
much brains to be here.' Reader, re- 
mark this, and if you doubt of his Lord- 



r' 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



351 



ship's humanity, you are infidel enough to 
doubt of his courage. Well, he burst into 
tears : and who could chuse but weep at a 
sentiment of such tender, compassionate, 
and sympathizing humanity ! No one, that 
I know of, can suppose these tears shed 
from that depression of spirits which the 
extremity of fear sometimes causes, and 
w'hich finds some ease from an involuntary 
overflow at the eyes. Never had such 
humanity such a panegyrist ; it does indeed 
deserve to be inscribed on Adamantine 
pillars of eternal fame, as Philo elegantly 
expresses it. Now as lie is such an admirer 
of humanity in others, let me call on his 
own humanity not to avail himself of the 
assistance of a pistol on this occasion ; as I 
will venture to answer for Mr No Ghost, 
that he will not talce up the gauntlet which 
Philo has so bravely thrown down, offering 

him the choice of pen or pistol. Alas, 

Philo I at the first of these weapons you are 
by no means, indeed you are not, a match 
for No Ghost ; and for the use of the last, 
you might chance to be hanged, and thus 
unfortunately frustrate his Lordship's hu- 
mane intentions of rewarding your courage 
with one of those pensions which he will 
multiply on the Irish estabhshment. 
I am, &:c. 

MODERATOR. 



I>ETTER VII. 



FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

22 October, 1767. 
Grand Council upon the affairs of Ireland 
after eleven adjournmerits^- 
Hill Street, -jth October, 1767. 

PRESENT. 

2 * Tilbury . . . fuddled. 
+ Judge Jefferyes. 



^ This paper was announced in the Public 
Advertiser in the following words : — ' The grand 
council upon the affairs of Ireland, after eleven 
adjournments, is come to hand, and shall have a 
place in our next.' To which was added by the 
printer himself: — 'Our friend and correspond- 
ent C. will always find the utmost attention 
paid to his favours.' 'C, as the reader must 
already have observed from the Preliminary 



X Caution . . . without foresight. 

II Malagrida. 

\ Boutdeville . . . sulky. 
A chair left empty for the ^ High Trea- 
surer, detained by a hurry of business at 
Newmarket. 

After a convenient time spent in staring at 
one another, up gets Tilbury. 

Thus from my Lord his passio??. broke ; 
He first, and then he spoke. 

TILBURY. 

In the name of the Devil and his dam, 
can anybody tell, what accident brings us 
five together ? 

CAUTION. 
For my own part, my Lords, I humbly 
apprehend — though I speak with infinite 
diffidence — I say, my Lords, I will not 
pledge myseli for the tnith of my opinion — 
but I do humbly conceive with great sub- 
mission — that we are met together with a 
view, and in order to consider whetlier it 
might not be advisable to give some instruc- 
tions to this noble Lord for his government 
in Ireland, or whether we should leave the 
direction of his conduct to the same chance, 
to which, under our Sovereign Laird the 
Earl of Bute (tlicy all boto their heads J, he 
owes his appointment. I may be mistaken, 
my Lords, but I — I — I — looks 7-ound him, 
simpers, a?ui sits down, 

TILBURY. 

B 1 me if I care whether he has any 

instructions or not. But who the Devil's to 
draw them up ? 



Dissertation and Private Letters, was the secret 
mark in use between Junius and the printer, to 
inform each other of the identity or receipt of 
communications. The present article, however, 
does not stand in need of this accidental proof 
of genuineness. Its internal evidence is suffi- 
cient without it : especially the identity of its 
style, and the peculiar nature of its political 
bearing. — Edit. 

■^ * The earl of Northington, president of the 
council. 

t Earl Camden, lord chancellor. 

J Mr Conway, northern secretary. 

§ Lord Shelburne, southern secretary. 

II LordTownshend, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. 

^ Duke of Grafton, first lord of the Treasury. 
— Edit. 



352 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



MALAGRIDA, with a complacent smile. 

That's a task, my Lords, which I 
believe no man here is better qualified to 
eicecute than myself. Your Lordships well 
know that I am far from being vain of my 
talents ; yet I believe I may affirm without 
presumption, that nature has done more 
for me, without any effort of my own, than 
other men usually derive from education 
and experience. My Lord Holland, who 
certainly had some reason to know me, has 
done me the honour to say that I was born 
a Jesuit, and that if all the good qualities 
which make the society of Jesus respectable, 
were banished from the rest of the earth, 
they would still find room enough in the 
bosom of Malagrida. His Lordship sa- 
gaciously observed, that mine was a sort 
of understanding more united with the 
heart than the head ; and that my ideas of 
men and things depended not so much 
upon the improvement of my brain, as upon 
the original colour and consistence of my 
blood ; consequently— But this is a seduc- 
ing subject, upon which perhaps — I fear— I 
am too willing to expatiate. To return 
then to the noble Lord's instructions ; — I 
should be happy to know what your Lord- 
ships' ideas are upon this most important 
question, that, when I have heard all your 
opinions, I may with greater decency 
follow^ my own. 

TILBURY. 

B — t me if T know anything of the mat- 
ter. — Falls asleep. 



The very learned Lord who slumbers 
upon the sofa, having, with his usual can- 
dour, confessed his usual ignorance 'upon 
the arduous subject of our present debates, 
it may seem presumptuous in a man of my 
inferior qualifications, even to form, much 
more to deliver, any opinion upon it. For 
this reason, my Lords, although I venture 
to speak first, I shall take care not to haz- 
ard any thing decisive. I have already had 
the honour of giving instructions to govern- 
ors ; and, excepting my noble colleague, 



with whom I agree, that he owes as much 
to nature for the accomplishments of his 
mind, as for those of his person, I believe 
few men succeed better at the ambiguous. 

It is my forte, my Lords ; I always 

contrive to leave the person I instruct at 
full liberty to act as he thinks proper, anji 
entirely at his own peril. Positive instruc- 
tions are too apt to endanger the safety of 
those who give them. Mine I am deter- 
mined shall endanger nothing but the safety 
of the state. But since the noble Lord 
absolutely insists upon being instructed in 
some way or other, my friendship for him, 
which he may believe is full as sincere as 
what I felt for his brother — poor Charles 

1 and art thou gone ! so is my 

friendship ; — I say, my Lords, since his 
Lordship can have no doubt about the 
warmth of my friendship for him, he may 
at all times rely upon my assistance and 
concurrence, and — and— it is unnecessary I 

believe to explain what simpers at 

Sulky, and sits down. 

JUDGE JEFFERYES, with dignity. 
My Lords, your Lordships know that the 
greatest part of my life has been dedicated 
to the study of the common and statute law 
of my country ; — you will not wonder there- 
fore at my appearing a strenuous advocate 
for the natural liberties of mankind, such 
as they possessed them before the existence 
of positive laws in this country, or any 
other. Now, my Lords, if I am not ill 
informed, the Irish are already in this de- 
sirable state of emancipation. By the most 
authentic accounts, they actually approach 
as near to a state of nature, as can be 
effected by the absence of all legal re- 
straints ; and for my own part — I will speak 
boldly, my Lords — I always do when the 
liberties of my fellow-subjects are in ques- 
tion 1 never consider my own cha- 
racter in what I say either in council or 

parliament ; 1 think, that to give any 

positive instructions to a chief governor, 
might have the odious appearance of invad- 



^ The Hon. Charles Townshend, chancellor 
of the Exchequer, then lately dead.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



353 



ing the natural rights of the Irish. It is 
their claim, it is their birthright, my Lords, 
to talk without meaning, and to live with- 
out law. This is the sort of liberty which 
our ancestors fought for, and whicli every 
true Enghshman ought to revere. God for- 
bid, my Lords, that any thing done by a 
British council, should tend to the diminu- 
tion of privileges, which the Irish justly 
think invaluable. Besides, my Lords, I 
have too much respect for the uncommon 
talents of the noble Lo*rd himself, to wish to 
confine him by any opinions of oiu^s. Let 
him but follow the dictates of his own 
genius, and I will venture to say, that the 
Irish will have no reason to envy the 
government of England ; — at least he may 
be assured of our hearty endeavours and 
concurrence to prevent any ill blood, upon 
that score, between the two nations. 

SULKY, ill ail attitude copied from Mr 
Spaj-kes?- 

I was quiet enough at Raneham, when I 
was told I was lord-lieutenant of Ireland. 
For a man to be told that he commands a 
kingdom or an army, when he dreams of no 
such matter, forms a situation too difficult 
for such a head as mine. My Lords, I 
speak from experience. Upon another 
occasion, indeed, I found the business done 
to my hand, by a person who shall be 
nameless. But alas ! I find things in a 
very different condition at present. I per- 
ceive that I am no more a statesman than a 
general, and that my predecessor, instead 
of doing any thing himself, has only be- 
queathed to me the disgrace of not being 
able to perform what he was so vain or so 
simple as to promise. — Then to be left to 
my own guidance ! — If my poor dear 
brother had lived, you would not have 
treated me so scurvily. — Surely your Lord- 
ships forget that these are a wild barbarous 
people, and how dangerous it is to trust to 
their respect for the person of a lord-lieu- 
tenant. — In short, my Lords, if you do not 



^ A comedian, thus characterized iu Church- 
ill's Rosciad : 



think proper to grant them a HABEAS COR- 
PUS, at least grant vie one, and as soon as 
possible. I shall never be easy until I find 
my body once more before you. In the 
mean time, I believe I had best follow my 
lord Bute's advice. 

OMNES. 

Lord Bute ! It must be followed. What 
is it? 

SULKY. 

To carry over with me a battalion of 
gallant disinterested Highlanders, who, if 
there should be any disturbance, may take 
to their broad swords. Where plunder's to 
he had, they'll take to any thing. I have 
seen it tried with astonishing success : and 
sure never was a man in such a taking as 
I was. 

CAUTION. 

The expedient, I confess, is admirable ; 
but pray, my Lord, how do you intend to 
provide for all these sweet-blooded chil- 
dren? 

SULKY. 

My secretary has got a list of the em- 
ployments in Ireland, and assures me that 
I shall be able to provide for as many 
more. 

Jefferyes, groiuiiig peevish and im- , 
patient. 

To conclude, my Lords. If what I have 
just now had the honour of throwing out 
should not be consistent with the noble 
Lord's ideas, or with his plan of govern- 
ment, he has my free consent to adopt a 
very different system. Instead of permitting 
the Irish to live without any law whatever, 
let him govern them by edicts from the 
castle. For my own part, I hate medium 
in government. I am all for anarchy, or all 
for tyranny. The Irish privy council are as 
good judges of the plea of necessity, and t 
dare say as ready to make use of it, as any 
other council. You have my authority and 
example, my Lord, in support of suspend- 
ing powers ; and provided you are a little 



Sparks at his glass sat comfortably down, 
To sep'rate frown from smile, and smile from 
frown.' — Edit. 

. 23 



354 



MISCFXLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



cautious in the object of your first experi- 
ment, you may carry this wholesome maxim 
to as great a length in Ireland, as, with the 
blessing of God ! {turning up his eyes to 
heaven) I intend to do here. 

A dog barks, and wakens Tilbury^ -who 
starts up. 

TILBURY. 
Zounds, my Lord, do you keep bull-dogs 
in your house ? 

MALAGRIDA. 

No, my Lord ; it is but a mongrel. 
Your true English bull-dog never quits his 
hold ; but this cur plays fast and loose, just 
as I bid him : he worries a man one mo- 
ment, and fawns upon him the next.i But, 
my Lords, I hope you are not going away 
before I have finished my speech. It is a 
masterpiece, I'll promise you, and has cost 
me infinite labour to get by heart. 

TILBUKY. 

No, damn me, 'tis a little too late, I 
thank you. Aside : This silly puppy takes 
me for his schoolmaster, and fancies I am 
obliged to hear him repeat his task to me. 
Exit. 

CAUTION. 

Pray spare me, my Lord ; you know my 
friendship : I would stay to hear you if it 
were possible. Aside : I see this will never 
do ; so I'll e'en try to renew with the Rock- 
inghams. Exit talking to himself. 

''■ The person here alluded to, is the late Col. 
Barre. — Edit. 

^ Lord Camden had been chief justice of the 
Common Pleas, was now chancellor, and was 
afterwards president of the council. — Edit. 

3 A writer in the Public Advertiser, in a pre- 
tended real account of what passed at the coun- 
cil, having charged JNIr Burke with being the 
author of this satire, and as the letters of Junius 
were, during their publication, attributed to that 
gentleman, we shall extract such part of it as 
more immediately relates to him. 

The council are supposed to have discussed 
the instructions to be given to the lord-lieutenant, 
and the lord president is then made to address 
them, as follows : 

President. 
If nothing further occurs to your Excellency, 



JEFFERYES. 

Change of place, my Lord, as well as 
change of party, is the indefeasible right of 
human nature. 2 It is a part of the 
natural liberty of man, which I am deter- 
mined to make use of immediately. Exit. 

MALAGRIDA to SULKY. 

Won't you hear me, my Lord ? 

! iULKY. 

It is unnecessary, my dear Lord. I see 
your meaning written in your face. Aside : 
What the Devil shall I do now ? A sick 
man might as well expect to be cured by a 
consultation of quack doctors ; they talk, 
and debate, and wrangle, and the patient 
expires. However, I shall at least have the 
satisfaction of drawing their pictures. I 
believe the best thing I can do will be to 
consult with my lord George Sackville. 
His character is known and respected in 
Ireland as much as it is here ; and I know 
he loves to be stationed in the rear as well 
as myself. Exit. 

MALAGRIDA soll/s. 

What a negro's skin must I have, if this 
shallow fellow could see my meaning in 

my face ! Now will I skulk away to 

, where I will betray or misrepresent 

every syllable I have heard, ridicule their 
persons, blacken their characters, and fawn 
upon the man who hears me, until I have 
an opportunity of biting even him to the 
heart. Exit.^ 



nor to you, my Lords, upon the present business, 
it will be time, I believe, for us to break up. 
{As the Council are rising, a Secretary enters.) 
Secretary. 
My lords, there is a person without, who says 
he has business of a private nature, and earnestly 
desires to be admitted. 

S.S. 
Do you know who the man is ? Are you ac- 
quainted with his person ? 

Secretary, 
I am, my lord : but as he desires, in case your 
Lordships do not think fit to see him, that his 
visit may be kept a secret, I beg to be excused 
mentioning his name : I believe he is personally 
known to every one present. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



355 



LETTER VIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 31 Oct. 1767. 

Your correspondent, who has 

Ovnies. 

Let him come in. 
{The Secretary goes out and returns, intro- 
ducing a tall, ill-looking fellow, iti a shabby 

black coat.) 

Lord President. 

What are your commands with us, Mr Brazen? 
Brazen. 

The business, my Lords, that has brought me 
thus unexpectedly into your company, will, I am 
persuaded, excuse the unseasonableness of my 
intrusion. I flatter myself I am known, well 
known, to every one of your Lordships. j\ly 
part has not been an obscure one : I may say, 
with the subli)nest of all poets. 
Not to k7ww me, &^c. 

In short, my Lords, I think I have trode the 
public stage of the world with some degree of 
applause ; with a pen that can blacken the 
whitest character, and a tongue that can dash 
tJie inaturcst C07iticils, I hold myself equipped 
at all points for the offices of party. One in par- 
ticular of this right honourable company can 
bear testimony to my performances. — What need 
of more words ? 

/ have done the state some service, and they 
know it. 

But, my Lords, to come to the point at once. — 
No man, I trust, in these times, serves the state 
for nothing ; yet such has been my pride or folly 
(call it which yoM will), that I have got nothing 
for my pains but empty praise. Now, my Lords, 
this diet begins to grow too thin for my stomach. 
I must own I expected to have reaped good 
interest for my self-denial ; but things have not 
come round as I looked for ; the revolutions in 
government have not kept pace with those that 
have been made in my fortune ; and the late 
unprosperous fatal negotiation has broken all 
my measures, and thrown me at length upon 
your Lordships' mercy, the humblest of your 
petitioners. 

Lord President. 

Will your Lordships have the patience to hear 
this prating fellow any longer ? 
Lord Camden. 

Mr Brazen, you will please to contract ^^our 
discourse as much as the matter will admit. A 
great deal that you have now been relating to us 
might, in my humble opinion, have been spared 
without any prejudice to your petition, or to 
your principles. If you have any real business, 
worthy being communicated to this company, 
we shall wish you to let us hear it without fur- 
ther preface. 



furnished you with what he calls a true 
account of a grand council in Hill Street, 
does not appear to me to have done much 
service to his patrons. The former dia- 
logue had at least some pleasantry (though 
not enough, I dare say, to draw a smile 

Brazen. 
I should have thought that your Lordship at 
least, in the course of your high office, had been 
more patient under circumlocution, than to cor- 
rect me for the little I have now made use of; 
however, not to incur 3'our displeasure, I will 
come at once to the point. Your Lordships see 
these two papers. This in my left hand, my 
Lords, contains the most important inteUigence 
that was ever directed to ministers. It is, my 
Lords, the whole scheme and plan of opposition, 
which 3'ou are shortly to encounter, concerted, 
modelled, and digested, according to rules'logical, 
metaphysical, and mathematical. It is the most 
bcantifzd, as Vi'ell as the subliviest, system of 
politics, that ever sprung from the brain of man. 
I am here ready to consign it over to your Lord- 
ships, upon the terms and conditions annexed to 
it ; and with it myself, my faith, my friendship, 
and my conscience. 

Wittiess that here lago doth give 7ip 
The execution of his zuit, hands, heart, 
To this great CoiinciVs service. 

[The whole of the Council rise at once, and the 
High Treasurer sj>eaks.) 

High Treasjcrer. 
My Lords, I see the indignation with which 
you receive this proposal, and the just contempt 
with which you are about to treat this most in- 
famous proponent. But I beseech you, let what 
I shall now say to him serve for his dismission, 
and hold him unworthy of any further reply. 
We reject your offer. Sir, with the most consum- 
mate disdain. Unfaithful to your own part}-, 
we scorn to admit 3'ou into ours ; and though the 
bounty of the council holds forth rewards for 
merit, we have neither the will nor the means to 
bribe and seduce a villain. Amongst those gen- 
tle.men, whom you thus offer to abandon, there 
are many for whose persons and characters we 
have the most absolute regard. Whatever their 
councils may be, and however hostile to our 
measures, we scorn to look into them by any in- 
direct means. Friends to the liberties of our 
country, and protectors of its constitution, we 
wish not to destroy opposition by the force of 
corruption, we seek only to confute it by the 
prevalence of reason ; every proposal that has 
the public welfare for its object, from what- 
ever party it springs, shall have our support ; 
and while we have truth and justice on our side, 
we have nothing to apprehend from opposition, 
though all your genius and (which is more) all 
your ill nature shall be drawn forth in its sup- 
port. 



3S6 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



from the parties concerned), and perhaps in 
marking the characters, a little too much 
truth. But this sorrowful rogue is too dull 
to be witty, and as for truth, I suppose it 
would neither suit his argument nor his 
disposition. His raillery upon a shabby 
black coat is indeed delicate to an extreme ; 
but he forgets that wit and abilities have as 
little connexion with rich clothes as they 
have with great places, and that a man may 
wear a fine suit, or figure as a secretary of 
state, without a single grain of either. But, 
Sir, if facts asserted are notoriously false, 
the assertion of them can do no mischief ; 
if notoriously true, they are beyond the 
reach of his wit, if he had any, to palliate, 
or of his modesty, which I think is upon a 
par with his wit, to deny. 

Now, Sir, if 1 were not afraid of dis- 
tressing him too much, I would ask him 
whether lord Townshend did not openly 
complain, only three days before his de- 
parture, that he could not, by the warmest 
solicitations, prevail on the ministry to 
agree upon any one system of instructions 
for him ; that he was left entirely to him- 
self; and that the ministry could not be 
persuaded to pay the smallest attention 
either to his situation, or to that of the 
country he was sent to govern. Did he not 
say this without reserve to every man he 
met, even in public court, and with all 
possible marks of resentment and disgust ? 
I would advise your second correspondent 
not to deny these known facts ; for if he 
does, I will assuredly produce some proofs 
of them, which will gall his patrons a little 
more than any thing they have seen already. 
Let one of them only recollect what sort of 

Brazen. 
'Tis very well, my Lords ; 'tis mighty well ; 
you have rejected the olive branch, take then the 
sword. — This paper, my Lords, in my right hand, 
holds a mine that shall blow you into the air. 
It is a libel wrote in gall. Your present consult- 
ations are the subject ; and every member here 
present shall have a seat, except I think fit to 
dispatch your unimportant Grace to Newmarket. 
For you, my Lord President, I shall characterize 
you under the name of Tilbury, because when 
that man kept an inn at Bagshot, you put up at 
his house. To my lord Camden, I shall bequeath 



conversation very lately passed between 
him and the lord-lieutenant, how he was 
pressed, and how he evaded. But the 
facts, of which the public are already pos- 
sessed, sufficiently speak for themselves, 
and the nation wants no further proof of 
the weakness, ignorance, irresohition, and 
spirit of discord, which reign triumphant in 
this illustrious divan, who have dared to 
take upon them the conduct of an empire. 

One question more, and I have done. 
Did it become him, who has undertaken 
the defence of a whole ministry, to forget 
one of the principal characters of the piece ? 
Why should he omit the dog? This 
mongrel, that barks, and bites, and fawns, 
has nevertheless a share in council, and, in 
the opinion of the best judges, cuts full as 
good a figure in it as his master. 

Here, who waits there?— Oh charming 
antithesis ! O polished language ! and 
equally fit for the noble Lord who speaks, 
or for the footman who hears it. 



LETTER IX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Mr Printer, 5 Dec. 1767. 

There are a party of us who, for 
our amusement, have established a kind of 
political club. We mean to give no offence 
whatever to any body in our debates. The 
following is a mere jeu d' esprit, which I 
threw out at one of our late meetings, and 
is at your service, if you think it will afford 
the least entertainment to your readers. ^ 
I am, &c. 

Y. Z. 



the odious name of Jefferyes, by the old deriva- 
tory rule of Lucres a no7i hicendo. Caution 
without foresight shall be your title. Sir ; and 
your noble colleague's, Malagrida ; when I have 
thought of any reason for either, I may give it 
you. To your Excellency, by way of contrast, 
I decree the name of Boutdeville , or Sulky. 

Here ; who waits there ? Take this fellow and 
put him out of the house. 

Exit Brazen between two/ootmen. 

^ As the debates in parliament were not allowed 
at this period to be given verbatim, they were 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



357 



Mr President. The condition of this 
country, at the conclusion of the last spring, 
was such as gave us strong reason to expect, 
that not a single moment of the interval 
between that period and our winter meet- 
ing would be lost or misemployed. We 
had a right to expect, that gentlemen, who 
thought themselves equal to advise about 
the government of the nation, would, dur- 
ing this period, have applied all their atten- 
tion, and exerted all their efforts, to dis- 
cover some effectual remedy for the national 
distress. For my own part, I had no 
doubt that, when we again met, the com- 
mittee would have been ready to lay before 
us some plan for a speedy relief of the 
people, founded upon such certain hghts 
and informations as they alone are able to 
procure, and digested with an accuracy 
proportioned to the time they have had to 
consider of it : But if these were our expect- 
ations, if these were the hopes conceived 
by the whole society, how grievously are 
we disappointed ! After an interval of so 
many months, instead of being told that a 
plan is formed, or that measures are taken, 
or, at least, that materials have been dili- 
gently collected, upon which some scheme 
might be founded for preserving us from 
famine ; we see that this provident com- 

usually delalled to the public under the guise of 
fictitious assemblies and opinions, through the 
medium of imaginary characters ; and under this 
form the writer undertakes to canvass the mea- 
sures of government, on the opening of the 
session of parHament in November, 1767. 
Whether the printer was aware that the speech 
here detailed was actually spoken by Mr Burke 
on the particular occasion to which it refers, or 
conceived it to have been merely fictitious, is 
uncertain. Since the former edition of this work, 
however, was put to press, a gentleman, who 
still thinks Mr Burke to have been the author of 
the Letters of Junius, and who means to give 
his opinions upon this subject to the public, has 
discovered that the speech is genuine, and was 
actually delivered ; and that the words C07n- 
viittee, society, chair, &c. are here substituted 
for those of administration, house, uiajesty, with 
such other variations as are necessary to give it 
its present character. A passage was suppressed 
in the original publication, which has now been 
added in a note to p. 359. That this speech was 
sent to the printer of the P. A. by Junius, will 
appear obvious to the reader from its being thus 
announced for publication. ' C.'s favour is come 



mittee, these careful providers, are of 
opinion, they have sufficiently acquitted 
themselves of their duty, by advising the 
chair to recommend the matter once more to 
our consideration, and so endeavouring to 
relieve themselves from the burthen and 
censure which must fall somewhere, by 
throwing it upon the society. God knows 
in what manner they have been employed 
for these four months past. It appears too 
plainly they have done but little good ; — I 
hope they have not been busied in doing 
mischief ; and though they have neglected 
every useful, every necessary occupation, I 
hope their leisure has not been spent in 
spreading corruption through the people. 

Sir, I readily assent to the laborious 
panegyric which the gentleman upon the 
lower bench has been pleased to make on a 
very able member of the committee, whom 
we have lately lost.i No man had a higher 
opinion of his talents than I had ; but as to 
his having conceived any plan for remedy- 
ing the general distress about provisions 
(as the gentleman would have us under- 
stand), I see many reasons for suspecting 
that it could never have been the case. If 
that gentleman had formed such a plan, or 
if he had collected such materials as we are 
now told he had, I think it is impossible 
but that, in the course of so many months, 



to hand, and we think our paper much honoured 
by his correspondence. He may be assured we 
shall take every possible means to deserve a con- 
tinuance of it.' 

The severity of the speech, however, whether 
conceived at that time to be genuine or fictitious, 
is so pointed, that the printer was half afraid to 
insert it, and the next day made the following 
apology for its non-appearance. ' We most 
heartily wish to oblige our valuable corre- 
spondent C, but his last favour is of so delicate a 
nature, that we dare not insert it, unless we are 
permitted to make such changes in certain ex- 
pressions, as may take off the immediate offence, 
without hurting the meaning.' 

This request appears to have been complied 
with : and hence, possibly, is to be attributed 
the turn given to the speech, as it appeared in 
the Public Advertiser. — Edit. 

^ The Right Honourable Charles Townshend, 
chancellor of the Exchequer, who died Sept. 4th, 
1767, and was succeeded in that office by lord 
North, the chief justice of the K. B. having, in 
virtue of his of&ce, held the seals for a few days 
only.— Edit. 



358 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



some knowledge or intimation of it must 
have been communicated to the gentlemen 
who acted with him, and who were united 
with him not less by friendship than by 
office. He was not a reserved man, and 
surely, Sir, his colleagues, who had every 
opportunity of hearing his sentiments in the 
committee, in private conversation, and in 
this society, must have been strangely in- 
attentive to a man, whom they so much 
admired, or uncommonly dull, if they could 
not retain the smallest memory of his 
opinions on matters on which they ought 
naturally to have consulted him often. If 
he had even drawn the loosest outlines of a 
plan, is it conceivable that all traces of it 
should be so soon extinguished ? To me, 
Sir, such an absolute oblivion seems wholly 
incredible. Yet admitting the fact for a 
moment, what an humiliating confession is 
it for a committee, who have undertaken 
to advise about the conducting of an em- 
pire, to declare to this society, that by the 
death of a single man, all projects for the 
public good are at an end, all plans are lost, 
and that this loss is irreparable, since there 
is not a leader surviving, who is in any 
measure capable of filling up the dreadful 
vacimm ! 

But I shall quit this subject for the pre- 
sent, and as we are to consider of an 
answer in return to the advice from the 
chair, I beg leave to mention some observa- 
tions occurring to me upon the advice itself, 
which I think I am warranted, by the 
established practice of this society, to treat 
merely as the advice of the foreman of the 
committee. 1 



^ The following are the passages in the king's 
speech moie immediately alluded to in this pre- 
tended discussion of it. _ 

'Nothing in the present situation of affairs 
abroad gives me reason to apprehend that you 
will be prevented by any interruption of the pub- 
lic tranquillity, from fixing your whole attention 
upon such points as concern the internal welfare 
and prosperity of my people. 

'Among these objects of a domestic nature, 
none can demand a more speedy or more serious 
attention, than what regards the high price of 
corn, which neither the salutary laws passed in 
the last sessions of parliament, nor the produce 
of the late harvest, have yet been able so far to 



The chief and only pretended merit of 
the present advice is, that it contains no 
extraordinary matter, that it can do no 
harm, and consequently that an answer of 
applause upon such advice, is but a mere 
compliment to the chair, from which no 
inconvenience can arise, nor consequence 
be drawn. Now, Sir, supposing this to be 
a true representation of the advice, I cannot 
think it does the committee any great hon- 
our, nor can I agree, that to applaud the 
chair for such advice would be attended 
with no inconvenience. Although an answer 
of applause may not enter into the appro- 
bation of particular measures, yet it must 
unavoidably convey a general acknowledg- 
ment, at least, that things are, upon the 
whole, as they should be, and that we are 
satisfied with the representation of them 
which we have received from the chair. 
But this, Sir, I am sure would be an ac- 
knowledgment inconsistent with truth, and 
inconsistent with our own interior convic- 
tion, unless we are contented to accept of 
whatever the committee please to tell us, 
and wilfully shut " our eyes to any other 
species of evidence. 

As to the harmlessness of the advice, I 
must, for my own part, regret the times 
when advices from the chair deserved 
another name than that of innocent ; when 
they contained some real and effectual in- 
formation to this society, — some express 
account of measures already taken, or some 
positive plan of future measures, for our 
consideration. Permit me. Sir, to divide 



reduce, as to give sufficient relief to the dis- 
tresses of the poorer sort of my people. Your 
late residence in your several counties must have 
enabled you to judge whether any further pro- 
visions can be made, conducive to the attainment 
of so desirable an end. 

' The necessity of improving the present gen- 
eral tranquillity, to the great purpose of main- 
taining the strength, the reputation, and the 
prosperity of this country, ought to be ever before 
your eyes. To render your deliberations for 
that purpose successful, endeavour to cultivate a 
spirit of harmony among yourselves. My con- 
currence in whatever will promote the happiness 
of my people, you may alway depend upon : and 
in that light, I shall be desirous of encouraging 
union among all those who wish well to their 
country.' — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



359 



the present advice into three heads, and a 
very little attention will demonstrate how 
far it is from aiming at that spirit of busi- 
ness and energy, which formerly animated 
the advice from the chair : You will see, 
under this division, that the small portion 
of matter contained in it is of such a nature, 
and so stated, as to preclude, all possibility 
or necessity of deliberation in this place. 
The first article is, that everything is quiet 
abroad. The truth of this assertion, when 
confirmed by an enquiry, which I hope this 
society will make into it, would give me 
the sincerest satisfaction ; for certainly 
there never was a time when the distress 
and confusion of the interior circumstances 
of this nation made it more absolutely ne- 
cessary to be upon secure and peaceable 
terms with our neighbours : But I am a 
little incUned to suspect, and indeed it is 
an opinion too generally received, that this 
appearance of good understanding with our 
neighbours deserves the name of stagna- 
tion rather than of tranquillity ; that it is 
owing not so much to the success of our 
negotiations abroad, as to the absolute and 
entire suspension of them for a very con- 
siderable time. Consuls, envoys, and am- 
bassadors, it is true, have been regularly 
appointed, but, instead of repairing to their 
stations, have, in the most scandalous 
manner, loitered at home ; as if they had 
either no business to do, or were afraid of 
exposing themselves to the resentment or 
derision of the court to which they were 
destined. Thus have all our negotiations 
with Portugal i been conducted, and thus 
have they been dropped. Thus hath the 
Manilla Ransom, that once favourite theme, 
that perpetual echo with some gentlemen, 
been consigned to oblivion. The slightest 
remembrance of it must not now be revived. 
At this rate, Sir, foreign powers may well 
permit us to be quiet ; it would be equally 
useless and unreasonable in them to inter- 
rupt a tranquillity, which we submit to pur- 
chase upon such inglorious terms, or to 

^ The words ' with Portugal ' are not in the 
genuine speech. — Edit. 
^ The following is the passage suppressed at 



quarrel with an humble, passive govern- 
ment, which hath neither spirit to assert a 
right, nor to resent an injury. In the dis- 
tracted, broken, miserable state of our in- 
terior governm.ent, our enemies find a con- 
solation and remedy for all that they 
suffered in the course of the war, and our 
councils amply revenge them for the suc- 
cesses of our arms. 

The second article of the advice contains 
a recommendation of what concerns the 
dearness of corn, to our immediate and 
earnest deliberation. No man, Sir, is more 
ready than myself, as an individual, to 
show all possible deference to the respect- 
able authority under which the advice from, 
the chair is delivered ; but as a member of 
this society, it is my right, nay, I must think 
myself bound to consider it as the advice of 
the foreman of the committee ; and, upon 
this principle, if I would understand it 
rightly, or even do justice to the te.xt, I 
must carry the foreman's comment along 
with me. But what. Sir, has been the com- 
ment upon the recommendation made to us 
from the chair ? Has it amounted to any 
more than a positive assurance that all the 
endeavours of the committee, to form apian 
for relieving the poor in the article of pro- 
visions, have proved ineffectual ? That they 
neither have a plan, nor materials of suffi- 
cient information, to lay before the society, 
and that the object itself is, in their appre- 
hensions, absolutely unattainable. If this 
be the fact, if it be really true that the fore- 
man, at the same time that he advises the 
chair to recommend a matter to the earnest 
deliberation of the society, confesses in his 
comment that this very matter is beyond 
the reach of this society, what inference 
must we necessarily draw from such a text, 
and from such an illustration ? I will not 
venture to determine what may be the real 
motive of this strange conduct and incon- 
sistent language ; but I will boldly pro- 
nounce that it carries with it a most odious 
appearance.- ******* 



this place, and intimated to be suppressed by 
the asterisms. It is extracted from the genuine 
speech of Mr Burke, as given in Almon's De- 



360 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS, 



With respect to the third and last head, 
into which the advice may be divided, I 
readily agree that there is a cause of discord 
somewhere ; where it is I will not pretend to 
say. That it does exist is certain ; and I 
much doubt whether it is likely to be re- 
moved by any measures taken by the pre- 
sent committee. As to vague and general 
recommendations to us to maintain unani- 
mity amongst us, I must say I think they 
are become of late years too fiat and stale to 
bear being repeated : that such are the kind 
sentiments and wishes of our chairman, I 
am far from doubting ; but when I consider 
it as the language of the foreman, as a fore- 
man's recommendation, I cannot help 
thinking it a vain and idle parade of words 
without meaning. Is it in their own con- 
duct that we are to look for an example of 
this boasted union ? Shall we discover any 
trace of it in their broken, distracted 
councils, their ■ public disagreements and 
private animosities. Is it not notorious that 
they only subsist by creating divisions 
among others ? That their plan is to 
separate party from party ? friend from 
friend ? brother from brother? Is not their 
very motto Divide et impera ? When 
such men advise us to unite, what opinion 
must we have of their sincerity ? In the 

bates for 1767, Vol. IV. pp. 506, 507. Lond. Ed. 

1792- 

' It has too much the air of a design to excul- 
pate the crown, and the servants of the crown, at 
the expense of parliament. The gracious recom- 
mendation in the speech will soon be known all 
over the nation. The comment and true illustra- 
tion added to it by one of the ministry will pro- 
bably not go beyond the limits of these walls. 
What then must be the consequence ? The hopes 
of the people will be raised. They of course will 
turn their eyes upon us, as if our endeavours 
alone were wanting to relieve them from misery 
and famine, and to restore them to happiness and 
plenty ; and at last, when all their golden ex- 
pectations are disappointed, when they find that 
notwithstanding the earnest recommendation 
from the crown, parliament has taken no effect- 
ual measures for their relief, the whole weight of 
their resentment will naturally fall upon us their 
representatives. We need not doubt but the 
effects of their fury will be answerable to the 
cause of it. It will be proportioned to the high 
recommending authority, which we shall seem 
not to have regarded ; and when a monarch's 



present instance, however, the advice is 
particularly farcical. When we are told that 
affairs abroad are perfectly quiet, and con- 
sequently that it is unnecessary for us to take 
any notice of them ;• when we are told that 
there is indeed a distress at home, but 
beyond the reach of this society's councils 
to remedy ; to have unanimity recom- 
mended us in the same breath, is, in my 
opinion, something lower than ridiculous. 
If the two first propositions be true, in the 
name of wonder, upon what are we to 
debate ? Upon what is it possible for us to 
disagree ? On one point our advice is not 
wanted ; on the other it is useless : but it 
seems it will be highly agreeable to the 
committee to have us unite in approving 
of their conduct ; and if we have concord 
enough amongst ourselves to keep in unison 
with them and their measures, I dare say 
that all the committee's purposes, aimed at 
by the recommendation, will be fully 
answered, and entirely to their satisfaction. 
But this is a sort of union which I hope 
never will, which I am satisfied never can, 
prevail in a free society like ours. While 
we are freemen, we may disagree ; but 
when we unite upon the terms recom- 
mended to us by the committee, we must 
be slaves. 



voice cries havock. will not confusion, riot, and 
rebellion make their rapid progress through the 
land ? The unhappy people, groaning imder the 
severest distress, deluded by vain hopes from 
the throne, and disappointed of relief from 
the legislature, will, in their despair, either set 
all law and order at defiance ; or, if the law be 
enforced upon them, it must be by the bloody 
assistance of a military hand. We have already 
had a n;elancholy experience of the use of such 
assistance. But even legal punishments lose all 
appearance of justice, when too strictly inflicted 
on men compelled by the last extremity of dis- 
tress to incur them. We have been told, indeed, 
that if the crown had taken no notice of the dis- 
tress of the people, such an omission would have 
driven them to despair ; but I am sure, Sir, that 
to take notice of it in this manner, to acknow- 
ledge the evil, and to declare it to be without 
remedy, is the most likely way to drive them to 
something beyond despair, to madness ; and 
against whom will their madness be directed, 
but against their innocent representatives V ' — 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



361 



LETTER X. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 Dec. 1767. 

If there, be any man in this 
country, who thinks that the combination 
lately entered into at Boston, is merely a 
matter of interior economy, by which we 
are either not essentially affected, or of which 
we have no right to complain, I may safely 
pronounce, that that man knows nothing of 
the condition of the British commerce, nor 
of the condition of the British finances. *It 
might be happy for us, if we were all in the 
same state of ignorance. To foresee a 
danger, when every chance of avoiding it 
hath been wilfully cut off, is but a painful 
and useless sagacity, and to shut our eyes 
to inevitable ruin, serves at least to keep 
tlie mind a little longer in a thonghtless 
security. 

In this way I imagine any man must 
reason, who is insensible of the consequence 
of the successive enterprises of the colonies 
against Great Britain, or who beholds them 
with indifference. I will not suppose that 
the bulk of the British people is sunk into 
so criminal a state of stupidity ; that there 
does exist a particular set of men, base and 
treacherous enough to have enlisted under 
the banners of a lunatic, ^ to whom they 
sacrificed their honour, their conscience, 
and their country, in order to carry a point 
of parry, and to gratify a personal rancour, 
is a truth too melancholy and too certain 
for Great Britain. These were the wretched 
ministers, who served at the altar, whilst 
the high priest himself, with more than 
frantic fury, offered up his bleeding country 
a victim to America. The gratitude of the 
colonies shows us what thanks are due to 
sucla men. They will not even keep mea- 
sures with tiieir friends ; for they hate the 
traitors, tliough the treachery hath been 
useful to them. The colonies are even 
eager to show that they regard the interests 



Lord Chatham. — Edit. 



of the men (who to serve them gave up 
every thing that men ought to hold dear, 
except their places) as little as they do 
the interests of their mother country, and 
will not comply so far with the promising 
engagements made for them here, as even 
to conceal their malignant intentions until 
their friends are out of place. Such is the 
certain effect of conferring benefits upon an 
American. 

Whatever has been hitherto the delusion 
of the pubhc upon this subject, I fancy we 
are by this time completely undeceived. 
Our good friends in America have been im- 
patient to relieve us from all our mistakes 
about them and their loyalty, and if we do 
not open our eyes now, we had better shut 
them for ever. 

It would be to no purpose at present to 
renew a discussion of the merits of the 
Stamp Act, though I am convinced that 
even the people who were most clamorous 
against it, either never understood or wil- 
fully misrepresented every part of it. But 
it is truly astonishing that a great number 
of people should have so little foreseen the 
inevitable consequence of repealing it, and 
particularly that the trading part of the city 
should have conceived that a compliance, 
which acknowledged the rod to be in the 
hand of the Americans, cotild ever induce 
them to surrender it. They must have been 
rather weaker than ourselves, if they ever 
paid their debts, when they saw plainly 
that, by withholding them, they kept us in 
subjection. In the natural course of things 
the debtor should be at the mercy of his 
creditor, rather than a tyrant over him ; but 
it seems that for these three years past, 
wherever America hath been concerned, 
every argument of reason, every rule of 
law, and evei^'' claim of nature, has been 
despised or reversed. We have not even a 
tolerable excuse for our folly. The punish- 
ment has followed close upon it ; and tliat 
it must be so was as evident to common 
sense, as probable in prospect, as it is now 
certain in experience. There was indeed 
one man, who wisely foresaw every circum- 
stance which has since happened, and who, 



362 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



with a patriot's spirit, opposed himself to 
the torrent.i He told us, that, if we 
thought the loss of outstanding debts, and 
of our American trade, a mischief of the 
first magnitude, such an injudicious com- 
pliance with the terms dictated by the 
colonies, was the way to make it sure and 
unavoidable. It was ne moriare, morl. 
We see the prophecy verified in every par- 
ticular, and if this great and good man was 
mistaken in any one instance, it was, per- 
haps, that he did not expect his predictions 
to be fulfilled so soon as they have been. 

This being the actual state of things, it 
is equally vain to attempt to conceal our 
situation from our enemies, as it is impos- 
sible to conceal it from ourselves. The 
taxes and duties necessarily laid upon 
trade, in order to pay the interest of a debt 
of one hundred and thirty millions, are so 
heavy, that our manufactures no longer 
find a vent in foreign markets. We are 
undersold and beaten out of branches of 
trade, of which we had once an almost ex- 
clusive possession. The progress towards a 
total loss of our whole foreign trade has 
been rapid ; the consequence of it must be 
fatal. We had vainly hoped that an exclu- 
sive commerce with our colonies (in whose 
cause a great part of the very incumbrances, 
which have destroyed our foreign trade, 
were undertaken) would have rewarded us 
for all our losses and expense, and have 
made up any deficiency in the revenue of 
our customs. We had a right to expect 
this exclusive commerce from the gratitude 
of the Americans, from their relation to us 
as colonists, and from their own real in- 
terest, if truly understood. But unfortun- 
ately for us, some vain, pernicious ideas 
of independence and separate dominion, 
thrown out and fomented b^ designing se- 
ditious spirits in that country, and encour- 
aged and confirmed here by the treachery 
of some and the folly of others, have cut off 
all those just hopes, those well-founded ex- 



* Mr George Grenville. — Edit. 

^ This letter was without a signature, and 
could not, therefore, be announced, but was thus 
noticed on the day previous to its publication. 



pectations. While we are granting boun- 
ties upon the importation of American 
commodities, the grateful inhabitants of 
that country are uniting in an absolute pro- 
hibition of the manufactures of Great 
Britain. To doubt that the example will be 
followed by the rest of the colonies, would 
be rejecting every evidence which the human 
mind is capable of receiving. To be mad is 
a misfortune, but to rave in cold blood is 
contemptible. 

The enterprises of the Americans are 
now carried to such a point, that every 
moment we lose serves only to accelerate 
oTl^ perdition. If the present weak, false, 
and pusillanimous administration are suf- 
fered to go on in abetting and supporting 
the colonies against the mother country, if 
the king should take no notice of this last 
daring attack upon our commerce, the only 
consequence will be that the contest, in- 
stead of being undertaken while we have 
strength to support it, will be reserved not 
for our posterity, but to a time when we 
ourselves shall have surrendered all our 
arms to the people, with whom we are to 
contend ; — nor will that period be distant. 

If the combination at Boston be not a 
breach of any standing law (which I believe 
it is), ought it not to be immediately de- 
clared so, by an act of the legislature ? It 
is true, that private persons cannot be com- 
pelled to buy or sell against their will ; but 
unlawful comibinations, supported by pub- 
lic subscription and public engagements, 
are and ought to be subject to the heaviest 
penalties of the law. I shall only add, that 
it is the common cause of this nation ; and 
that a vigorous and steady exertion of the 
authority of Great Britain would soon awe 
a tumultuous people, who have grown 
insolent by our injudicious forbearance, and 
trampled upon us, because we submitted to 
them .2 



' C.'s favour is come to hand.' For a further 
continuation of this subject, see Miscellaneous 
Letters, Nos. XXIX. and XXXI.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



363 



LETTER XL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Mr Woodfall, 22 Dec. i.'jS'j. 

Your correspondent of yesterday, 
Mr Macaroni,! in his account of the new 
ministerial arrangements, has thrust in a 
laboured bombast panegyrick on the earl of 
Chatham ; in which he tells us, ' that this 
country owes more to him than it can 
ever repay.' Now, Mr Woodfall, I entirely 
agree with Mr Macaroni, that this country 
does owe more to lord Chatham than it can 
ever repay ; for to him we OWE the great- 
est part of our national debt ; and that I 
am sure we never can repay. I mean no 
offence to Mr Macaroni, nor any of your 
gentlemen authors, who are so kind to give 
us citizens an early peep behind the politi- 
cal curtain, but I cannot bear to see so 
much incense offered to an Idol,i who so 
little deserves it. 

I am yours, &c. 

DOWNRIGHT. 



LETTER XII. 

to the printer of THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 16 Febrziary, 1768. 

A MINISTER, who in this country 
is determined to do wrong, should not only 
be a man of abiUties but of uncommon 
courage. To invade the rights or to insult 
the understanding of a nation, qualified to 
judge well, and privileged to speak freely, 
upon pubUc measures, requires a portion of 
audacity unacquainted with shame, or of 
power which knows no controul. Whether 
it be owing to a hardy disposition, or to the 

^ This writer had furnished the printer with a 
list of the supposed changes in administration. — 
Edit. 

^ See the conclusion of Miscellaneous Letter, 
No. IV. and Private Letter, No. 23, in which 
the same term is applied to lord Chatham. — 
Edit. 

3 See this subject further discussed in Letter 
LX.— Edit. 



conceit of unlimited power, or to mere solid 
ignorance I know not, but it is too ap- 
parent that the present ministry, in every 
thing they do, or attempt to do, are deter- 
mined to set the understanding and the 
spirit of the English people at defiance. In 
a succession of illegal or unconstitutional 
acts, the instance of to-day ought at once 
to remind us of what they have done 
already, and to alarm us against what they 
may attempt hereafter. We have reason to 
thank God and the legislature, that some 
of the most flagitious of their enterprises 
have been happily defeated. Their endea- 
vour to establish a suspending power in 
the crown met with all the contempt it 
deserved ;3 nor have they yet quite succeeded 
in emancipating the colonies from the au- 
thority of the British legislature. But when 
open and direct attacks upon the constitu- 
tion have failed, a bad ministry will natur- 
ally have recourse to some more artful 
measures, by which the prerogative of the 
crown may be extended, and the purposes 
of arbitrary power answered as effectually, 
and more securely to themselves. When 
attempts of this insidious nature are made, 
it is the duty of every subject, be his situa- 
tion what it may, to point out the danger 
to his countrymen, and warn them to guard 
against it. I shall take another opportunity 
to enquire into the legality of the appoint- 
ment of a third secretary of state : at pre- 
sent let me be permitted to rouse the atten- 
tion of the public to a later and to a still 
more flagrant stretch of prerogative. A 
prostitution or corruption of old offices 
may be as fatal to the constitution, as the 
illegal creation of new ones. In the Ga- 
zette of Saturday se'nnight we are informed, 
that the privy seal is committed to the care 
of three persons, whose commission is to 
continue six weeks. ^ From the names of 



4 Whitehall, Feb. 2. The king has been pleased 
to issue his commission under the great seal, 
authorizing and empowering Richard Sutton, 
William Blair, and William Frazer, esqrs., or any 
two of them, to execute the office of keeper of 
his Majesty's privy seal, for and during the 
space and term of six weeks, determinable 
nevertheless at his Majesty's pleasure : and 
also to grant, during his Majesty's pleasure, to 



364 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



these persons we can collect nothing, but 
that two of them are of Scottish extraction, 
and that the third is recorder of St Alban's ; 
but from their insignificance and obscurity 
we may easily collect, that there is some 
particular design in fixing on such persons 
to execute one of the first offices of the 
state. Why the earl of Chatham should 
continue to hold an employment of this im- 
portance, while he is unable to perform the 
duties of it, is at least a curious question. 1 
But it is infinitely more material to enquire 
why the interregnum is not committed to 
people of a higher rank and character. 

The establishment of the several high 
offices of state forms a natural and consti- 
tutional check upon the prerogative of the 
crown. No illegal or unconstitutional 
grant, charter, or patent of any kind, can 
take effect from the mere motion of the 
sovereign, but must pass through a number 
of offices, in each of which it is the duty of 
the officer, if the case requires it, to remon- 
strate to the crown, as he himself is 
answerable for the consequences of any 
public instrument, which he has suffered to 
pass through his department. The delay of 
this progression has another good effect, in 
giving the subject time and opportunity to 
enter his protest against any sudden or 
inconsiderate grant, by which his own 
property, or the welfare of the country in 
general, may be affected, and to have the 
matter fairly discussed. 

The precedence annexed to these high 
offices (exclusive of the importance of the 
several degrees of trust reposed in them) 
sufficiently proves that they ought to be 



the right honourable William earl of Chatham, 
the said office of keeper of his Majesty's privy 
seal, from and after the said term of six weeks, 
or other sooner determination of the said com- 
mission. — Edit. 

'- We have here another proof of the hostility 
of Junius at one period to this nobleman, a 
previous proof having already occurred in the 
Miscellaneous Letter, No. I., p. 341, to the note 
appended to which we refer the reader. 

In the Private Letter, No. 23, dated October 
19, 1770, he still insinuates his dislike : for in re- 
questing the printer of the Public Advertiser to 
cpntradict his being the author of the letters 



confined to men of the first character and 
consequence. Men of that degree may 
safely be trusted, because they have a 
greater stake to hazard, and are answerable 
to the public with their lives and fortunes. 
The dignity of the lord privy seal's office 
(next in rank to the president of the council) 
would of itself be a sufficient reason for 
giving it to none but men of birth and 
character, and the great trust, annexed to 
that dignity, is a further reason for never 
committing such an office to any but men 
of the first rank and fortune. But in the 
choice of the present commissioners, there 
seems to be something particularly and 
singularly improper. When a caveat is 
entered against a grant from the crown, 
and when a question of political and com- 
mercial importance is therefore to be dis- 
cussed, can there be a higher insult to the 
pubhc than to commit the determination of 
such a question to three persons very low 
in point of rank, and absolutely dependent 
in point of situation ? Shall we not be 
justified in supposing that they are elected 
for no other quaUty but their insignificance ? 
Whatever pretences may be alleged to the 
contrary, the public will have too much 
reason to suspect that these worthy com- 
missioners are taught their lesson, and that 
the job is too dirty to be imposed upon 
gentlemen of a higher station than a clerk 
in office. I cannot believe that these per- 
sons could have been chosen by the earl of 
Chatham. Whatever may be his faults, a 
man of spirit could no more lend his office 
than he could his mistress to the purposes 
of prostitution ; much less would he de- 



subscribed A Whig atid an Englishmaii, he 
adds, ' I neither admire the writer 710 r his idol.'' 
Who the writer of these letters was we know not : 
but the idol was certainly lord Chatham. 

In reality it was not till about the date of Let- 
ter LIV., under his favourite signature of Ju- 
nius, that he began to think commendably of 
this nobleman. ' I am called upon,' says he, in 
that letter, ' to deliver my opinion, and surely it 
is not in the little censure of Mr Home, to deter 
me from doing signal justice to a man, who, I 
con/ess, has growji 7iJ>on vzy esteem.^ See p. 
294. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



365 



scend to take either of them back again 
with a public mark of infamy upon them. 

Now, Sir, let us suppose these three 
respectable persons seated upon their tri- 
bunal, with two judges of England by their 
side, and the first lawyers of this country 
pleading before them upon a question of 
the first importance to this country ; the 
judges, I doubt not, will sit in silent wonder 
at the judicial abilities of these great men, 
and silent they must be, unless a point of 
law should arise, on which the triumvirate 
shall deign to ask their opinion ; the lawyers 
will naturally exert their utmost efforts, 
when they consider that they have the hon- 
our to plead before three gentlemen of such 
profound knowledge, such distinguished 
rank, and such inflexible probity, that nei- 
ther ignorance, nor ministerial influence, 
nor private corruption, can have any share 
in their decision. 

I pity the unhappy Englishman, for he 
perhaps may blush for his situation. 



LETTER XIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

24 February, 1768. 

Fliictus uti primo ccepit cmn alhescere vento, 
Paiillatim sese tollit viare, &= altms -iindas, 
Erigitf inde i7no co}iS2irgit ad cethe7'afundo- 
ViRG. ^N. VII. 528. 

Sir, 

The people of England are by 
nature somewhat phlegmatic. This com- 
plexional character is extremely striking, 
when contrasted with the suddenness and 
vivacity of many of our neighbours on the 
continent. It even appears remarkable 
among the several kindred tribes, which 
compose the great mass of the British em- 
pire. The heat of the Welch, the impe- 
tuosity of the Irish, the acrimony of the 
Scotch, and the headlong violence of the 
Creolians, are national temperaments very 
different from that of the native genuine 
English. 

This slowness of feeling is in some re- 



spects inconvenient ; but, on the whole 
view of life, it has, I think, the advantage 
clearly on its side. Our countrymen derive 
from thence a firmness, an uniformity, and 
a perseverance in their designs, which 
enables them to conquer the greatest diffi- 
culties, and to arri\ e at the ultimate point 
of perfection in almost everything they un- 
dertake. 

Their slowness to passion has also an- 
other advantage. No wise man will lightly 
venture to do them a real injuiy. Their 
anger is not suddenly kindled, nor easily 
extinguished ; it is dark and gloomy ; it is 
nourished to a gigantic size and vigour, 
under a silent meditation on their wrongs, 
until at last it arrives at such a mature and 
steady vehemence, as becomes terrible in- 
deed. It was on a consideration of this 
kind of character, that a great poet says 
with a singular emphasis — ' Beware the 
fury of a patient man.' 

It is surprising how much this character 
is exemplified in every part of our history. 
The long patience, amounting almost to 
tameness, with which the people of Eng- 
land have borne the outrages of evil minis- 
ters, has only been equalled by the irresist- 
ible force by which they attacked, and the 
unrelenting severity with which they finally 
punished, the authors of their great griev- 
ances. 

I wish with all my heart thnt our time 
may furnish no such examples -. and yet I 
confess, my fears are excited by appear- 
ances that are sufficiently alarming. The 
people of England have seen an adminis- 
tration formed, almost avowedly, under the 
direction of a dangerous, because private 
and unresponsible, influence ; and at the 
same time with an outward presidency of 
ministerial despotism, which by its very 
nature annihilated all public council. This 
they endured. They saw a course of the 
most scandalous and corrupt profusion of 
public money that ever was known in the 
kingdom, attended with such a neglect of 
every public duty, as if an experiment was 
intended, to try how far the stute could 
subsist by its own strength, without any of 



366 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the usual aids of active government. The 
people of England bore this likewise. 

They saw the very first opportunity laid 
hold on to revive the doctrines of a dispens- 
ing power, state necessity, arcana of govern- 
ment, and all that clumsy machinery of 
exploded prerogative, which it had cost 
our ancestors so much toil, and treasure, 
and blood, to break to pieces. This we 
suffered with our usual patience. They 
saw an attempt made to render all the 
monied property of the kingdom loose and 
insecure, and to turn our national funds 
from being supports of public credit into 
instruments of ministerial power, and to 
take away that dependence upon law which 
had been in all ages the great source of our 
domestic happiness, and that firm reliance 
upon public faith which has been the means 
of making us respectable to all the world. 
The EngUshman still continued sullen and 
silent. 

I'hose very circumstances which strike 
terror into the heart of a wise man, are 
often such as inspire fools with confidence 
and presumption. Having had sufficient 
proof as they thought of the passive dis- 
position of their fellow-citizens, and at a 
loss for precedents of despotism of a modern 
date in any civilized country, they began 
to ransack the stores of antiquated oppres- 
sion, and ventured to perpetrate an act (by 
a singular composition) of such consum- 
mate audacity and meanness of spirit, as 
it might well be thought impossible to 
unite. 

In subserviency to the odious influence 
under which they act, this administration 
dared — to an informer nearly allied to that 
very influence ^ — at the time, and for the 
purposes of an election — refusing to hear 
counsel — not daring to take the opinion of 
the king's law servants — denying access to 



^ The informer was the late earl of Lonsdale, 
at that time sir James l^ovvther, who had married 
a daughter of lord Bute, whose injiue7ice is here 
alluded to. The estate belonged to the duke of 
Portland. See Letter LVIL, p. 300, note. — 
Edit. 

^ Duchess of Portland. — Edit. 

3 By a bill called the Quieting Bill, and which 



the records in their possession — to pass a 
grant of the estate of a noble and most re- 
spectable person, derived from a king to 
whom we owe all our liberties ; sixty-three 
years in undisputed possession, the subject 
of frequent settlements, and now actually a 
part of the jointure of the noble Duchess.^ 
The people of England at length began 
to break silence. They might indeed look 
upon the private wrong as a matter of in- 
ward meditation, and a further exercise of 
their patience. But the principle of this 
grant has given a shock to the whole 

LANDED property OF ENGLAND, 

Called upon by this practical menace to 
all landed property, and by many other de- 
tached grievances, arising from the same 
absurd and tyrannical principle, thai ?io 
length of possession secures against a claim of 
the crown, one of the ablest, most virtuous, 
and most temperate men in the kingdom, 
supported by a steady band of uniform patri- 
ots, has made an attempt in a certain great 
assembly (without providing any remedy 
for this case of oppression), to secure the 
subject at least for the future against such 
wild and indefinite claims. 

Such was the spirit which manifested it- 
self upon that occasion, that though for the 
present, after a glorious struggle, they have 
failed, there is no sort of doubt that the cry 
of reason, ||ustice, policy, and the general 
feehng of the people, will shortly prevail ; ^ 
snd the rather, as this discussion has 
brought to light further designs of the most 
extraordinary nature, and such as will, if 
not timely prevented, spread distracdon 
from one end of the kingdom to the other. 
My next v/ill be on that important subject. 
MNEMON. 



was again brought forward by .sir G. Savile in 
the following year, and carried. But see the 
subject further elucidated, and the final deter- 
mination of the Court of Exchequer on the suit 
depending between sir James Lowther and the 
duke of Portland, in the editor's note to Junius's 
Letters, No. LVIL, p. 300, as also No. LXVIL, 
p. 324. — Edit. , 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



367 



LETTER XIV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

4 March, 1768. 

Oh, wretched State 1 Oh Bosom black as 

Death I 
Oh Ihned Soul, thai, struggling to be free, 
Art more encaged. 

Shakespeare. 

Sir, 

Innocence, even in its crudest 
simplicity, has some advantages over the 
most dexterous and practised guilt. Equivo- 
cal appearances may, to be sure, accident- 
ally attend it in its progress through the 
world ; but the very scrutiny which these 
appearances will excite, operates in favour 
of innocence ; which is secure the moment 
it is discovered. But guilt is a poor help- 
less, dependent being. Without the alliance 
of able, diligent, and, let me add, fortunate 
fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty 
culprit be obstinately silent, his silence 
forms a deadly presumption against him. 
If he speaks, talking tends to discovery ; 
and his very defence often furnishes mate- 
rials towards his conviction. 

This has been exactly the case of those 
unhappy men (the ministry), in that apology 
for their conduct, which they chose to com- 
plicate with their opposition to the settle- 
ment of the national property. Nobody, 
not originally acquainted with the bottom 
of their proceedings, was able to discern 
the true nature and full extent of their crime, 
until we had seen upon what principles they 
grounded their defence. 

It is worth while to lay this affair a little 
more open. The maxim of Nullufn Tefn- 
pus occurrit Regi} that no length of con- 
tinuance, or good faith of possessioji, is 
available against a clai7n of the crown, has 
been long the opprobrium of prerogative, 
and the disgrace of our law. The ablest 
writers in that profession have ever men- 
tioned it with abhorrence. The best judges 
have always cast an odium upon it, as being 



fundamentally contrary to natural equity, 
and all the maxims of a free government. 
And a superior genius, a great light of the 
age, 2 has not long since endeavoured to 
give it as great a check as judicature, un- 
aided by legislative powers, is able to inter- 
pose. 

The truth is, this prerogative has hitherto 
owed its existence principally to its disuse. 
It was an engine, at once so formidable to 
the people, and so dangerous to those who 
should attempt to handle it, that it never 
was considered amongst the instruments of 
a wise tninister. It remained like an old 
piece of cannon, I have heard of some- 
where, of an enormous size, which stood 
upon a ruinous bastion, and which was 
seldom or never fired for fear of bringing 
down the fortification for whose defence it 
was intended. 

But constituted as administration is at 
present, where real power is invested in one 
hand, and responsible office placed in 

j another, from the security of the former 
situation, and from the servile dependance 
of the latter, it is no wonder that hazardous 
measures should be commanded without 
fear, and that they should be executed, 

j though with the utmost trepidation and re- 
luctance. From thence arose that desperate 
proceeding which has given such an uni- 
versal alarm to property. 

Upon the first attack on that rotten part 
of prerogative (out of whose corruption the 
late northern grant was generated) the 
ministers found themselves entirely at a 
loss. To defend their Ntdhim Tempus 
upon principles of liberty, or even upon 
principles of justice, was a thing clearly im- 
possible. To abandon it without reflecting 
on their past ftinduct, and without giving 
up their future projects, was a point of 
equal difficulty. It seems that they had 

I hoarded up those unmeaning powers of the 
crown, as a grand military magazine, to- 
wards the breaking the fortimes and depress- 
ing the spirit of the nobility, for drawing 
the common people from their reliance on 



^ The commencement of the obsolete law 
Vifhich in this case was appealed to by the minis- 



ter: hence called the Nullum Tempus Law. — 
Edit. ^ Sir George Savile. — Edit. 



368 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the natural interests of the country to an 
immediate dependance on the crown, and 
principally for enabling ministers, public or 
secret, to domineer and give the law in all 
future elections. They thought their scheme 
would then be complete, if the votes of 
freeholders, the very means which our an- 
cestors had provided as the great security 
to our freedom, could be converted into the 
most certain instruments of the public 
servitude. 

It was evident, that when they refused to 
give up this barbarous maxim, it was their 
intention to make some sort of use of it. 
Such a conclusion could not in any way be 
evaded. In this strait they took the part 
of avowing, that they did intend to find 
some employment for their favourite pre- 
rogative, which, after so long a trance, they 
had thought proper to disenchant,- and to 
set in action. It was then their business 
to find some excuse for themselves, and 
some pretence of public utility for their 
system. 

On this occasion they built upon two 
grounds very well worthy of the reader's 
utmost attention : the first I shall now 
point out ; the latter, and most important, 
would transgress the limits of your paper. 
It shall be reserved for another opportunity. 

The first thing they did, was totally to 
disclaim their own free agency. In the 
highest department of the state, they de- 
clared themselves to be mere creatures of 
execution. They asserted, that they were 
in all matters of this sort entirely sub- 
servient to an officer, hitherto httle heard 
of, but from henceforth to be a name of 
dreadful note in this country, the sur- 



^ In a debate which took place in the House of 
Commons, February 27, i77i,"n a motion made 
by sir William Meredith, to repeal a clause in 
the Bill o/Qjiiet, which passed in the year 1768, 
lord North thus defends himself from the grant 
in question : — 

' The honourable gentleman [Mr Cornwall, 
afterwards speaker of the House of Commons,] 
has revived in my memory a grant, which passed 
since I had the honour of holding the seal of the 
Exchequer, and which seal, I am proud to own, 
was affixed by me to the grant in question. This 
he calls an abominable act : but in the situation 
I then was, and still am, I thought myself bound 



VEYOR^GENERAL. It is their system, that 
if uiformers (be they who they may, in 
circumstances of indigence to make any 
desperate attempt, or of wealth and power 
to combat the great, and crush the poor) 
can contrive to obtain the surveyor's report 
in their favour, ministers are obliged, with- 
out further inquiry, to grant to them patents 
to vex, harass, impoverish, possibly to ruin, 
any honest proprietor in the kingdom. 

It is true that they supported themselves 
in this perverse doctrine by no one argument 
from law, usage, or common sense : but it 
is their system ; and it is mentioned here, 
not to show the depth of their understand- 
ing, but the malignity of their designs. 
For if once they could come to establish 
this their favourite point, things would 
stand thus : — The surveyor-general, who 
keeps all the crown titles {maccessible to the 
subject), has a hint to find a weak part in 
some old possession ; say of sixty, say of 
two hundred years. A couxi favourite has 
a hint to become an informer, a character 
no way incompatible with his own. Then 
all the rest follows of course. The lords 
of the Treasury 7mist obey the informer, 
and make the reference ; the surveyor mtcst 
obey the Treasury and report ; and then 
the Treasury in their turn must obey the 
surveyor, and direct the grant. The 
whole system moves, according to the pre- 
ordained laws of despotism, in a circle of 
strict necessity?- 

In this procedure, who can convict the 
surveyor-qe7teral of corrupt activity or obe- 
dience? He is only bound to prove, that 
the lands in question have been in some 
former age in the hands of the crown. 



to pass it by every principle of duty to the 
crown, as the servant of the crown, and bound 
still more strongly by that duty which I owe to 
the public, as steward of the public estate, as far 
as it is intrusted to me. It is my glory that \ 
passed the grant ; and as often as mention of it 
is made, so often shall I think .that honour im- 
puted to me.' Notwithstanding lord North's 
boast upon the occasion, the grant was ulti- 
mately set aside by the Court of Exchequer, on 
the ground that a q2iit-re7it of thirtee7i a.ndfour- 
pe7ice was not an adequate third-part of its clear 
yearly value. But see the decision of that court, 
as given in p. 302, note. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



369 



This is not difficult : all the lands of the 
kingdom have been so. It is his duty, 
according to the present prerogative doc- 
trines, not to discover, or to suffer to be 
discovered, any thing which may tend to 
clear and settle the right of the subject- 
He may have that in his office which would 
establish the very title he attefnpts to over- 
throw : but fairness in his situation is held 
to be a breach of trust, because the crozuii 
is always considered by these gentlemen, 
with respect to the szibject, as an adverse 
pa?-ty ; and to exist in a state of imre- 
mitting and immortal litigation with the 
people. 

Thus a mutual obedience and a common 
impunity is established between these two 
great powers, the Treasury and the sur- 
veyor, grounded on the favourite principle 
of necessity. The only free agent in the 
whole transaction is the informer ; but he 
is not only as dispunishable as the others, 
but is highly meritorious into the bargain, 
for discovering what, in their prerogative 
jargon, is called a concealment : that is to 
say, in plain English, the ancient possession 
and inheritance of a valuable and loyal 
subject. By all these means an office of 
inquisition is established in the true in- 
quisitorial spirit, and with geftuine in- 
qteisitorial powers, over all the landed 
property of E7igland. The use proposed 
to be made of it will be the subject of my 
next paper. 

In the mean time it is a matter of very 
serious consideration, to observe the growth 
of arbitrary and despotic principles in this 
country : There is such a pernicious vigour 
in their vegetation, and such a rank luxuri- 
ance in the soil, that when they seem to be 
cut up even by the roots, they will suddenly 
shoot up in some other place, and under 
some other, and perhaps more dangerous, 
appearance. Suppress them under the 
shape of general warrants, or seizure of 
papers, they will start up in the form of 
dispensing powers, forfeiture of charters, 
violations of public faith, establishme7its of 
private monopolies, and raising up anti- 
quated titles for the crown. There is a 



consideration still more melancholy : that 
many persons, ^ apostatizing from their prin- 
ciple, betraying their associates, and com- 
bining with their adversaries, make no 
other iise of the credit they have derived 
from their former activity in the cause of 
freedom, than that they may approach it 
without suspicion, and wound it beyond all 
possibility of cure. 

MNEMON. 



LETTER XV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

II March, 1768. 

What aileth thee, Mnemon ? 
Why art thott so disqjiietedl 
A nd why is thy understanding troubled ? 

Is it not very extraordinary, Mr 
Printer, that the parts and abilities of 
M7iemo?i should be prostituted to the 
licentious abuse of the highest and most 
honourable board in this kingdom, com- 
posed of persons of the most unimpeached 
characters, because they have dared to 
grant some crown lands to sir James Low- 
ther, not comprehended in that of king 
William, to one of his Dutch imports, but 
usurped and illegally withheld by them ? 

Can any one review the parliamentary 
debates of that aera, and not be fired at 
the glorious spirit exerted by the Commons 
of England against the enormous grant of 
crown lands made to the Dutch favourites 
of that monarch ? 

Was not the most scandalous partiality 
shown to them in prejudice to the people 
of this country? Were not honours and 
riches heaped upon them with unexampled 
profusion ? 

Whence, in the name of God, all this 
clamour? What is it to the public, whe- 
ther a Bentink or a Lowther succeeds? 
Are not the courts of law open to determine 
it? Can it be a subject for faction, or a 
pretext for abuse ? No, Sir ; be assured, 



^ The duke of Grafton is the person here 
alluded to. 

24 



37C 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the arrows wound not ; the breast, fraught 
with conscious worth, feels not the shafts 
of envy. 

ANTI VAN TEAGUE. 



LETTER XVI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 24 March, 1768. 

Your correspondent Antl van 
Teague, in your paper of Friday sennight, 
has undertaken a task, far, I am afraid, 
above his abilities. His inclination I be- 
lieve to be very good, but non tali auxilio, 

nee defensoribus isiis Tempus eget. If 

Nullum Teviptis, and the late most extra- 
ordinary and alarming use made of it, is 
now to be defended, I would advise that 
most honourable board, composed (as Anti 
van Teague says) of persons of the most 
unimpeached characters, to hire abler ad- 
vocates for its defence. Uncommon parts 
and no vulgar eloquence are required to 
subdue the fears and quiet the apprehen- 
sions of all the landed property of these 
kingdoms. When that most honourable 
board shall next think fit to bestow another 
estate upon a Lowther, or any other in- 
former, wonderful no doubt will be the 
contented acquiescence of the person rob- 
bed, when he is assured that what is taken 
from him to gratify the Scotch favourite of 
to-day, was given some hundred years ago 
by the crown to a Dutch favourite of that 
time. Surely, Sir, the noble duke who is 
the present sufferer, must feel great satis- 
faction in finding the sins of his ancestors 
visited upon him. A Stuart has at length 
risen up to avenge upon the memory of 
king WiUiam, and the descendants of all 
those embarked with him in the once glori- 
ous cause, the injuries and sufferings of 
that once (but now no longer) hateful name. 
We have lived, Sir, to see an advocate 
for the ministry of George the Third de- 
fending their actions and justifying their 
conduct, by asserting — not that their actions 
are just and their conduct clear, but that 



their injustice falls heavy on the posterity 
alone of those who by their arms and their 
counsel assisted our great deliverer to effect 
that revolution, to which, and which alone, 
we owe the establishment of his present 
Majesty's most illustrious and royal family 
on the throne of these kingdoms. 

What Anti van Teague means by unim- 
peached characters I cannot readily guess. 
I suppose he means the public character of 
the ministers, or rather of the minister.^ 
His private character I do not meddle with, 
but to call his character unimpeached, who 
is not only charged with, but to the sense 
of every impartial person convicted of, the 
most daring and flagitious attacks upon the 
liberty and property of his fellow-subjects, 
is really surprising. 

Is the revival of the suspending and dis- 
pensing powers of the crown an experiment 
of curiosity alone ? — but for that he has in 
the most solemn manner been pardoned by 
an act of parliament, and therefore pro- 
bably that will not make part of his im- 
peachment. Is his open and wicked 
interference in elections, by threats and 
bribery, manifest to the whole nation 
(though h,is reverend instrument was ac- 
quitted), to be accounted no more than a 
good-natured solicitude for his friends ? 

Are his violent attacks upon the monied 
and landed property of the people nothing 
more than dutiful exertions of his power to 
pay on one hand the debts of the civil fist, 
and on the other hand to raise support, 
and extend that hidden, pernicious, and 
unconstitutional influence, in which, and 
by which, he lives and moves, and has his 
being? 

Is his lavish and wasteful profusion of the 
public property in pensions, reversions, 
grants, and monopohes, a decent and be- 
coming reward to those who have been, or 
are willing to be, his tools and creatures ? 

Is his activity in corruption and oppres- 
sion, and his perfect idleness in, and neg- 
lect of, all public and national business, a 
spirited exertion on one hand, and a need- 
ful repose on the other ? 



^ The duke of Grafton.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



371 



I have, you see, Sir, not meddled with 
his private character ; I leave that for him 
to earth in whenever he is hard run, ac- 
cording to the laudable example of his 
chancellor of the Exchequer.^ Let him re- 
semble the great demigods of antiquity, 
who had also two characters, and whilst one 
half of them was taken up to heaven, the 
other half found its way to hell. I shall 
only advise Aiiti van Teague to recommend 
it to his patron not to trust too much to his 
double capacity, lest, at some odd turn, he 
may find his private person so involved in 
his piiblic character, that the sharpest ax, 
and the most dextrous operator, may not 
be able to avenge the nation upon the last, 
without doing some small prejudice to the 
first. 

I am, &c. 
Not yet an enemy to the revolution, 
ANTI STUART. 



LETTER XVII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

5 April, 1768. 

Vivit f imo verb etiam in senatum venit ; fit 
piiblici consilii particeps : notat, et limis de- 
sigtiat oculis ad ccedem icfitanqicenique nos- 
trum, 

Cicero in Catilinam. 

Sir, 

The return of Mr Wilkes to Eng- 
land, and the measures he has since pur- 
sued, have given the servants of the crown 
an opportunity of acting in a manner so 



'■ Lord North.— Edit. 

^ It has already appeared in several instances, 
that Junius, subsequently to the present date, 
espoused the cause of Mr Wilkes, or rather 
strenuously upheld him in his contest with the 
ministry upon the very subject adverted to in 
this letter. Yet the political conduct of Junius 
was perhaps strictly and unimpeachably uniform. 
He had, at first, indeed, conceived a personal 
dislike to Mh Wilkes, in consequence of his 
strenuous resistance to the general warrant 
which was served upon him during the adminis- 
tration in which jNIr George Grenville was chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, for whom, whether in 
office or out of office, Junius ever manifested 
the strongest partiality. But in the present 



becoming themselves, that it would be in- 
gratitude not to take notice of their extra- 
ordinary merits upon this occasion. Our 
gracious sovereign undoubtedly thinks him- 
self highly indebted to his ministers for 
their uncommon care of his honour and 
dignity, as well as for their attention to the 
security of his house, family, and sacred 
person ; and I may venture to assure them 
that the public in general have a just sense 
of the vigour and spirit with which they 
have administered the laws, and with which 
the peaceable part of his Majesty's subjects 
have been protected. What sort of tlianks 
they will receive from their sovereign, I can- 
not tell, but, as far as my weak endeavours 
can reach, the nation shall not remain un- 
apprised of the extent and species of our 
obhgations to them. 

A man of a most infamous character in 
private life is indicted for a libel against the 
king's person, solemnly tried by his peers 
according to the laws of the land, and 
found guilty. 2 To avoid tlie sentence due 
to his crime, he flies to a foreign country, 
and faihng to surrender himself to justice is 
outlawed. By this outlawry, he loses all 
claim to the protection of those magistrates, 
and of those laws, to which, by his evasion, 
he had refused to be amenable. After some 
years spent abroad, this man returns to 
England with as little fear of the laws, 
which he had violated, as of respect for the 
great person, whom he had wantonly and 
treasonably attacked. Without a single 
qualification either moral or political, and 
under the greatest disability, this man pre- 



instance, Wilkes is only adverted to as an instru- 
ment of attack upon an administration which Ju- 
nius abominated ; and as soon as he found that 
he could support this attack better by enlist- 
ing this gentleman in his favour than by continu- 
ing in opposition to him, he shrewdly took mea- 
sures for such a purpose, and was fortunate 
enough to succeed. 

There is the same apparent inconsistency in 
i his being ultimately the friend of lord Camden, 
j who is here held up to the public odium, and to 
i lord Chatham, after having as warmly opposed 
him. But his change of opinion concerning these 
noblemen was by no means a sudden flight : it 
grew upon him slowly, and was the result of their 
own change of conduct. — Edit. 



372 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



sumes so far upon the protection of the 
populace, as to offer himself a candidate to 
represent the metropoUs of the kingdom. 
Disappointed in this attempt, notwithstand- 
ing all the efforts and violence of the rabble, 
he has still the confidence to offer himself 
to the freeholders of Middlesex as a proper 
person to represent a county, in which he 
has not a single foot of land ; and to com- 
plete the whole, we see a man overwhelmed 
with debts, a convict, and an outlaw, re- 
turned to serve in the British parliament as 
a knight of a shire. These, Sir, are the 
main facts of Mr Wilkes's case. The cir- 
cumstances with which they were attended 
are no less atrocious. We saw the other 
candidates, gentlemen of large fortune, and 
of the most respectable characters, dragged 
from their carriages, and hardly escaping 
with life out of the hands of Mr Wilkes's 
friends and companions. If the candidates 
were treated in this manner, you may 
imagine what sort of reception their friends 
met with in attempting to poll for them. 
The fact is, that great numbers were driven 
back by main force, or deterred by the 
threats of the populace ; so that not a 
third part of the friends of sir William 
Proctor and Mr Cooke were ever permitted 
to approach the hustings. The conclusion 
of Monday and Tuesday night was perfectly 
consistent with the whole proceedings of 
the day. I need not enlarge upon this 
detestable scene, since there is hardly a 
family in London or Westminster which 
has not had reason to remember the day of 
Mr Wilkes's election. The metropolis of 
the kingdom, the seat of justice, and the 
residence of the sovereign, and of the 
royal family, were left, for two nights toge- 
ther, at the mercy of a licentious, drunken 
rabble, without the smallest guard, either 
civil or military, to secure the king's person, 
or to protect his subjects. Amidst all the 
horror and outrage of these transactions, 
is there one Englishman endowed with the 
smallest portion of reason or humanity, 
who can hear without grief and resentment, 
that, even in some of the royal palaces, to 
avoid worse consequences, illuminations 



were made to celebrate the success of a 
, who, after heaping every possible in- 
sult on the person of his sovereign, returns 
in triumph to brave and outrage him again, 
even in the place of his immediate resid- 
ence ! 

Such was the scene, of which all the 
inhabitants of London and Westminster 
were witnesses to their cost. Let us now 
enquire what has been the conduct of the 
ministry during the course of it. Long 
before Mr Wilkes appeared at Guildhall, 
it was 'well known that he was in London ; 
and, if any measures had been taken by the 
ministry to secure him in consequence of 
his outlawry, it might undoubtedly hcvve 
been done with the greatest facility. Why 
no process was sued for out of the Court of 
King's Bench, let the ministers answer if 
they can. But they have much more to 
answer for. They are responsible for all 
the consequences of permitting this outlaw 
to appear at large, and for all the violences 
of which he has since been the author. By 
their indolence and neglect, or perhaps in 
consequence of a secret compact with him, 
this m.an has been suffered to throw the 
metropolis into a flame, to offer new out- 
rages to his sovereign, and at last to force 
his way into parliament, where, if he were 
a man of any parliamentary abilities, I 
doubt not but he would reward them as 
they deserve. In the midst of all this tu- 
mult and confusion, the chancellor of 
Great Britain ^ and the first lord of the 
Treasury 2 retire out of town, and leave the 
whole executive power of the crown to fall 
to the ground. In the name of God and 
the laws, are such men fit to govern a great 
kingdom ? To say that they are, is an in- 
sult to the common understanding of man- 
kind, and I hope our gracious' sovereign 
will do justice to himself and to his people, 
by depriving them of a power, which they 
have either not courage or not honesty 
enough to exert in his service. I am per- 
suaded there is not a man of property, 
sense, or honour in this country, who Is not 

* Lord Camden. ^ The duke of Grafton. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



373 



ready, heart and hand, to support the con- 
stitution, and to defend the sovereign, 
though his own immediate servants have 
deserted him. We have hitherto taken no 
steps for our defence, because we expected 
the protection of government ; but we are 
still strong enough to defend our hves and 
properties against Mr Wilkes and his ban- 
ditti ; nor shall the treacherous example 
set us by the ministry, ever induce us to 
abandon our own rights, or those of the 
chief magistrate. 

C.i 



LETTER XVIII. 

TO IHE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 5 April, 1768. 

There is something so extraor- 
dinary in the conduct of the ministry, with 
respect to Mr Wilkes, that I cannot help 
suspecting they have a secret motive for it, 
which the public is not aware of. It is to 
me inconceivable that he should have been' 
suffered to return to England, and remain 
at large, notwithstanding his outlawry ;— 
to offer himself a candidate for the metro- 
polis ; — to appear the leader of violence and 
riot uncontrouled ; — and at last to succeed 
in his enterprise at Brentford ; — unless all 
this had been done with the connivance and 
consent of the king's servants. My sus- 
picions may perhaps be ill founded, but I 
think there is reason enough to apprehend 
that Mr Wilkes would never have been 
permitted to go such lengths, if all were 
well between the ministry and the earl of 
Bute. They certainly have a design to 
terrify the Scotchman, and to keep him in 
order, by producing their tribune once 
more upon the stage. Let the Thane look 
to himself ! Mr Wilkes, being a man of 
no sort of consequence in his own person, 
can never be supported but by keeping up 
the cry, and this cry can no way be main- 



^ The editor has already had occasion to ob- 
serve in various places that C. was the signature 
adopted by Junius in his private correspondence 



tained but by renewing his attacks upon 
the Scotch favourite and his countrymen. 
With this key we may, perhaps, account 
for the supineness and indifference with 
which the ministry have seen the laws 
trampled on, and the public peace and 
tranquillity destroyed, by the respectable 
Mr Wilkes, and his no less respectable 
friends. 

Yours, 
Q IN THE CORNER. 



LETTER XIX. 

to the printer of the public 
advertiser. 

12 April, 1768. 

The common law hath so admeasured the kiitg's 
prerogatives, that they should not take away 
nor prejudice the inheritaiice of any. 

Coke's Instit. 

Sir, 

The extraordinary purpose to 
which an old maxim, or rather dictum, of 
the common law has lately been applied 
by the commissioners of the Treasury, has 
led me to consider upon what principles it 
was originally founded, and whether it be 
appUcable to the present circumstances of 
the British constitution. A resumption of 
lands held under a supposed grant from the 
crown, after a possession of near fourscore 
years, was an alarming measure to every 
English gentleman of landed property, but 
the principle on which it was defended was 
formidable enough to strike a terror into 
men of all ranks who had either estates or 
liberty to lose. A ministry, determined to 
invade the liberties or property of the sub- 
ject, may, in our law books, find antiquated 
maxims to support the most violent stretches 
of prerogative ; and if it be admitted that 
no length of possession is good against the 
crown, I hardly know that right or privi- 
lege, much less any tract of soil possessed 
by the subject, which may not be disputed 



with the printer of the Public Advertiser. See 
more especially the private letters C. passim. — 
Edit. 



374 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



or resumed at the pleasure of the sovereign. 
It has been a fashion with some writers to 
represent the feudal government as a sys- 
tem of liberty ; but I must confess that a 
constitution, wherein the king is supposed 
to be the original owner of all the lands ; 
wherein we have seen the nobility at per- 
petual war with the sovereign, and bringing 
their vassals into the field against him, or 
against one another ; and wherein the 
whole body of the people was held in abso- 
lute dependance upon the petty tyrants ; 
does not present to me the idea of political 
liberty in any part of it. The greatest com- 
mendation it deserves is, perhaps, that it 
was capable of improvement. Accordingly 
it has been so altered and so mended, that 
a man must be well read in law to discover 
any trace of it in the present form of our 
government ; and I am justified by modern 
statutes in asserting, that we never thought 
our constitution completely settled upon 
the basis of freedom, until every mark of 
feudal services and dependance was abol- 
ished by parliament. 

But though great improvements have 
been made, there remains yet a great deal 
to be done ; and if the crown be permitted 
to recur to maxims of law which prevailed 
when a system of government subsisted 
very different from the present, the most 
arbitrary measures may still pass for a legal 
exertion of the royal prerogative. I am 
still the king's liege man, and may be sent 
from one part of the country to the other, 
from the care of my family and affairs, and 
perhaps in my absence a nullum teynpus 
may deprive me of my estate. The argu- 
ment alleged by lawyers in favour of their 
own rule, that no delay shall bar the king's 
right (viz. ' because the law intends that 
the king is always busied for the public 
good, therefore has not leisure to assert his 
right within the times limited to subjects '), 
will hardly bear a strict examination, 
especially if referred to the present estab- 
lishment. Either it is not well founded in 
fact, or the reasoning on which it depends 
will prove too much. It is not true at this 
day, and I doubt whether it ever were true, 



that the law (which is the solemn sense and 
opinion of the people) supposes the king so 
continually employed about public affairs, 
as to be entitled to an extraordinary indulg- 
ence in the neglect of those precautions 
which concern the private interests of the 
crown. If, indeed, the king were supposed 
to transact and govern the affairsof the king- 
dom, in his own person ; or if he had not 
a number of officers whose duty it is to take 
care of and transact every business relative 
to his private rights, and private property, 
an indulgence of this nature to a chief 
magistrate, so much employed, and so little 
assisted, might not be thought very unrea- 
sonable. But when, on the one hand, the 
ministers of the crown are alone responsi- 
ble for the conduct of public affairs ; and 
when, on the other, it is the business of the 
Treasury, of the Exchequer, of the land sur- 
veyors, and of a multitude of officers, to 
oversee and manage the revenues and dis- 
tribution of the crown lands, I hold it to be 
highly unconstitutional, as well as absurd, 
to introduce the person of the sovereign as 
claiming an indulgence to himself for neg- 
lects, which are properly the neglects of his 
servants. But admitting the excuse of pub- 
lic employment for private negligence to be 
valid, let us see how far it will reach. 
If the sovereign, on account of his high 
occupations, be entitled to such a privi- 
lege, his ministers certainly have a claim 
to their share of it. The lords, who are 
hereditary counsellors of the crown ; — the 
judges ; — every member of the House of 
Commons, and ambassadors sent abroad, 
may all plead public employment ; nor can 
there be any good reason alleged why every 
officer engaged in the public service, from 
the high chancellor down to the bum-bailiff, 
should not be allowed his proportion of 
7iullum tempus, according to their several 
ranks, and the time they continue in em- 
ployment. But it were endless to refute 
arguments which have neither truth nor 
meaning. 

The maxim, that nullum tempus occurrit 
regi, if ever, could only be true under the 
feudal government. It was then a national 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



375 



interest to preserve the roj'al demesne 
entire, because the support of the royal 
dignity depended upon it. The king, out 
of tliis revenue, defrayed the expense of 
his family and government, and never 
applied for aids to the people, but upon 
pretence of extraordinary emergencies. By 
preserving this separate property to the 
king, the people in effect preserved their 
own, and therefore admitted without reluct- 
ance a maxim introduced by the lawyers 
of the crown, since it tended to deter indi- 
viduals from invading a branch of royal 
revenue, any deficiency in which must 
have been made good out of the public 
stock. Nothing less than a reason of this 
public nature could have procured submis- 
sion to a doctrine full of hardship and 
oppression to the subject, and which, in 
favour of the crown, directly contradicted 
those rules of common law, by which the 
possession of property between man and 
man was secured. 

To revive and enforce a maxim of this 
sort, when not one of the reasons subsist on 
which it was originally founded, when the 
king's family and government are supported 
by a fixed revenue of eight hundred thou- 
sand pounds raised upon the people, is cer- 
tainly a most unwarrantable and a most 
dangerous attempt. Under the present 
board of Treasury, the reign of Empson and 
Dudley seems to flourish again ; and where 
is the man who can say his liberty or his 
property is secure to him, if antiquated 
doctrines and obsolete laws may be brought 
to life at the breath of a young, inconsider- 
ate, arbitrary minister, and sent abroad to 
attack every subject whom he shall think 
proper to call an enemy to government ? 
A minister capable of recommending such 
measures to the crown, calls to my mind 
the idea which our ancestors had of some 
black magician conjuring up infernal spirits 
from the depths of the earth and of the sea, 
and letting them loose to the destruction of 
mankind. Delusions of this sort have in- 
deed been long since exploded ; but there 
are other diabolical arts, which certainly do 
exist, which ministers practise, but which I 



hope will be as little able to maintain 
themselves against the improved under- 
standing and well-directed firmness of the 
English nation. C. 



LETTER XX: 



For the Public Advertiser. 

23 April, 1768. 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

Is it ciionrli that A bra shoidd be great 
In the ivalPd j'mlo.ce or the rural seat i 
Oh, no ! yeriisalein co!>ib:ned must see 
My open shame and boasted infamy. 

My Lord, 

Permit me to congratulate your 
Grace upon a piece of good fortune which 
few men, of the best established reputation, 
have been able to attain to. The most 
accomplished persons have usually some 
defect, some weakness in their characters, 
which diminishes the lustre of their brighter 
qualifications. Tiberius had his forms ; 
Charteris now and then deviated into hon- 
esty ; and even lord Bute prefers the sim- 
plicity of seduction to the poignant plea- 
sures of a rape. But yours, my Lord, is a 
perfect character : through every line 01 
public and of private life you are consistent 
with yourself. After doing everything, in 
your public station, that a minister might 
reasonably be ashamed of, you have deter- 
mined, with a noble spirit of uniformity, to 
mark your personal history by such strokes 
as a gentleman, without any great disgrace 
to his assurance, might be permitted toblush. 
for. I had already conceived a high opinion 
of your talents and disposition. Whether the 
property of the subject, or the general rights 
of the nation, were to be invaded ; or whether 
you were tired of one lad}', and chose 
another for the honourable companion of 
your pleasures ; whether it v/as a horse- 
race, or a hazard-table, a noble disregard 
of forms seemed to operate through all 
your conduct. But you have exceeded my 
warmest expectations. Highly as I thought 
of you, your Grace must pardon me wher. I 



376 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



confess that there was one effort which I 
did not think you equal to. I did not think 
you capable of exhibiting the lovely Thais i 
at the opera-house, of sitting a whole night 
by her side, of calling for her carriage your- 
self, and of leading her to it through a 
crowd of the first men and women in this 
kingdom. To a mind like yours, my Lord, 
such an outrage to your wife, such a 
triumph over decency, such insult to the 
company, must have afforded the highest 
gratification. When all the ordinary re- 
sources of pleasure were exhausted, this, I 
presume, was your novlssima voluptas. It 
is of a lasting nature, my Lord, and I dare 
say will give you as much pleasure upon 
reflecdon, as it did in the enjoyment. After 
so honourable an achievement, a poet's 
imagination could add but one ray more to 
the lustre of your character. Obtain a 
divorce,^ marry the lady, and I do not 
doubt but Mr Bradshaw will be civil enough 
to give her away, with an honest, artless 
smile of approbation. 



LETTER XXI. 



TO THE PE INTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 23 April, 1768. 

If I were to characterize the pre- 
sent ministry from any single virtue which 
shines predominant in their administration, 
I should fix upon duplicity as the proper 
word to express it. 

I would not here be misunderstood : I do 
not by this mean only the little sneaking 
quality, commonly called double-dealing, 
which every pettifogging rascal may attain 
to ; but that real duplicity of character 
which our ministers have assumed to them- 
selves, by which every member of their 
body acts in two distinct capacities, and, 
Janus-like, bears two faces and two 

^ Miss Parsons, afterwards lady Maynard. — 
Edit. 

^ The duke of Grafton was, subsequently to 
the date of this letter, divorced from Miss Lid- 
del, then duchess of Grafton, and married, not 
the lady in question, but Miss Wrottesley, niece 



tongues, either of which may give the lie to 
the other without danger to his reputation. 

This is the present cathohc political feith, 
which, unless a man believes, he shall not 
get a place ; and if people would attend to 
this, they would be able to account for 
many of our great men's actions, which are 
unaccountable any other way. 

By this rule a man may say as a judge, 
that the loss of an Englishman's hberty for 
twenty-four hours only is grievous beyond 
estimation .; and then as a minister may 
declare, that forty days' tyranny is a 
trifling burthen, which any Englishman 
may bear,^ 

As a member of parhament, a man may 
give his word that a certain bill shall be 
dropped ; and the next day, as a chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer, may bring it into the 
House. 

A first lord of the Treasury may declare 
upon his honour that he has no concern in 
India stock ; but there is nothing in this to 
hinder him as a private man from having a 
share with any young lady of virtue to the 
amount of ^20,000. 

In those cases, you see, the duplicity of 
character in which they act, covers the 
parties from all sort of blame ; but I will 
now do honour to the noble duke who, 
from under the footstool of gouty legs,^ has 
crept into the elbow-chair, who, though 
green in years, is ripe in devices. It is he 
who has carried this double-faced virtue to 
its greatest pitch. He has not only prac- 
tised it with great success in public affairs, 
but has also lately introduced it into deal- 
ings between man and man. 

Everybody knows the story of nullum 
tempus, and the application of it to rob the 
duke of Portland of ^^30,000. The duke of 
Grafton (as set forth in a case lately pub- 
lished) upon a representation, before any 
proceedings were had in the affair, did 



to the duchess of Bedford. See Letter XII. — 
Edit. 

3 In allusion to lord Camden's opinion upon 
the power of the crown to suspend an act of par- 
liament. See the subject further discussed in 
Letter LX. — Edit. 

4 Lord Chatham's. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



377 



actually promise to the duke of Portland, 
' That no step should be taken towards the 
decision of the matter in question till his 
Grace's title should be stated, referred to, 
and reported on, by the proper officer, and 
fully and maturely considered by the board 
of Treasury.' — Had the duke of Portland 
been fully apprised of the new doctrine of 
the twofold state of ministers, he would 
have considered this promise (as it was 
really meant) as illusory, and only an ex- 
pedient to lull him asleep while the busi- 
ness was going on. But his Grace knew no 
more of this maxim than if he had been an 
India director, and thought that a promise 
was a promise in whatever character it was 
given ; so while he, in full confidence, was 
preparing the proofs of his right, the affair 
in dispute was given away, and the new 
grant to sir Jam.es Lowther made out, 
signed and sealed in the Treasury, without 
ever ' his Grace's title being stated, referred 
to, or reported on, by the proper officer, 
or fully and maturely considered by the 
board.' 

Lest any one should think that I partially 
ascribe this conduct of the duke of Grafton 
to my favourite principle of two natures, 
when it ought to be laid to some other of 
his Grace's virtues, I shall here quote a 
reply to the duke of Portland's case, lately 
published (as it is said) under the auspices 
of the Treasury, where this doctrine is 
defended with equal modesty and truth. 
The writer begins by admitting the promise, 
which he says was inadvertently given by 
the duke of Grafton ; but then, says he, 
' since he was the king's servant, and liad 
no title to the making this promise, he per- 
ceived he was not in honour bound to 
adhere to it.' — Now here is a fair distinction 
between the king's servant and the man of 
honour, a distinction which, I believe, few 
people at present are disposed to deny. 
His Grace (who has undoubtedly very 
delicate perceptions) perceived that as a 
king's minister he was not bound to keep a 
promise which he had made as a private 
man ; and in this (continues the pamphleteer) 
' he can be supported by the soundest 



casuists.' — I am not deeply read in authors 
of that professed title, but I remember 
seeing Bassambaum, Saurez, Mohna, and a 
score of other Jesuitical books, burnt at 
Paris for their sound casuistry by the hands 
of the common hangman. I do not know 
that they have yet found their way to 
England, unless perchance it be to the 
library of his Grace of Grafton, where they 
probably stand with the chapter of promises 
dog-eared down for the perusal of scrupul- 
ous statesmen. 

This doctrine, once fully established, will 
add a great facility to business, and prevent 
unnecessary delays : for example — informer 
times a minister would have been exceed- 
ingly hampered with such a promise as we 
have here cited: he would have shifted, and 
delayed, and played the back-game to have 
got rid of it, or to reconcile the breach to 
his conscience and reputation ; but here 
you see there was no unnecessary delay : 
the business went on ; and he who acknow- 
ledged that he had given his word in a 
private capacity, brings the book to prove 
that as a first lord of the Treasury ' he was 
not bound to adhere to it,' — and this is 
sound casuistry. Thus a man who is dex- 
terous in state legerdemain, may play his 
two characters like cups and balls ; speak, 
write, read, lie, promise, swear, and you 
can never catch him till the box drop out of 
his hand. 

I proposed to have made this a complete 
panegyric on the duke of Grafton ; but I 
find it extremely difficult to draw one cha- 
racter of a man that acts in two. If, how- 
ever, my poor attempt towards it should 
find favour in his sight, I hope he will on a 
future occasion afford me the means of dis- 
tinguishing between his two characters, as 
Moliere's Sosia does between the two Am- 
phitrions, ' c'est I'Amphitrion chez qui Ton 
dine.' 

BIFRONS. 



378 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

6 May, 1768. 



Nil admirari. 



Sir, 



When the advocates of the minis 
try assure us that there never was a set of 
men more careful of the happiness of his 
Majesty's subjects, I presume it is Horace's 
sense of happiness which they would be 
understood to promote. If it be their 
design to reduce us to a state of resignation 
in which we shall wonder at nothing they 
do, their bitterest enemies must confess that 
their endeavours to make us happy have 
been no less indefatigable than ingenious. 
By a regular progression from surprise to 
wonder, from wonder to astonishment, and 
so on through all the forms of admiration, 
they have at last conducted us to that 
philosophical state of repose, which may set 
even the miracles of the present ministry at 
defiance. If the force of example, beyond 
all ethics, had not made me as callous as a 
shoeing-horn, the contents of Saturday 
night's Gazette would, I confess, have 
made me stare. When his Majesty (God 
bless him !) is in perfect health, to be in- 
formed that the first session of a new par- 
liament is to be opened by commission, is a 
novelty which, had I been less confirmed in 
my principles than I am, would, I own, 
have filled me with a certain portion ,of 
amazement. 1 Tliat the minister himself 
should have his reasons for not being very 
desirous to meet a parliam.ent, or that he 
should wish to answer for his conduct by 
confusion, is not so extraordinary ; but that 
he should give such advice to a prince, 
beloved, adored by his people, is a step, 



^ Fro7n the Londo7t Gazette. — Whitehall, 
April 30. It being his Majesty's royal intention, 
that the parliament, which is summoned to meet 
on Tuesday the loth day of May next, should 
then meet and sit ; the king has been pleased to 
direct a commission to pass the great seal, ap- 
pointing and authorizing his royal highness the 
duke of Gloucester, his royal highness the duke 



which, in my present condition, does every 
thing but surprise me. Is it possible, Mr 
Printer, that the ministry should not know 
what sort of interpretation will be given to 
this measure ; or did they mean t6 give the 
finishing stroke to Mr Wilkes's triumph, 
and to the dishonour which they, and they 
alone, have heaped upon the crown? I 
protest, Sir, I had very near betrayed my 
principles, and suffered an indecent ex- 
pression of surprise to escape me. At a 
time when the residence of the sovereign 
was really exposed to violence and insult,^ 
these worthy ministers gallantly retreated 
from the danger ; but now, to make 
amends for that desertion, they affect a 
care for the king's security, equally ridicul- 
ous and disgraceful. What, Sir, is govern- 
ment in their hands really sunk so low that 
they dare not hazard a meetmg between 
their sovereign and his parhament ? Or are 
they afraid that another language might be 
held to parliament than that which they 
dictate ; that some expression of a just 
resentment of their baseness should escape ; 
or do they acknowledge to the world their 
apprehensions of the populace? If that be 
the case, I can only say, that the infamy of 
the measure can be exceeded by nothing 
but the vileness of the motive. 

These distant hints, I hope, Sir (as I 
think the ministry do not pique themselves 
much upon steadiness), may appear time 
enough to induce them to recommend a 
different system, more worthy of the crown, 
though less worthy of themselves. 

C. 

LETTER XXIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 12 May, 1768. 

I HAVE read in your paper of this 



of Cumberland, Thomas, lord archbishop of 
Canterbury, and other lords, to open and liold the 
said parliament on the said loth day of May 
next, being the day of the return of the writs of 
summons. — Edit. 

^ See note in p. 154, and Miscellaneous Letter, 
No. XVII.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



379 



day a second letter in defence of the con- 
duct of the Treasury relative to the late 
extraordinary grant. That conduct was a 
specimen of their principles. They have 
now thought fit to give the public a sample 
of their reasoning. 

Their letter ought to have been (if it had 
been what it pretends to be) an answer to 
the several accusations laid against them 
in a pamphlet, entitled, ' The duke of Port- 
land's Case.' Their answer is an attempt 
to prove that the duke of Portland had no 
right in law to those lands, of which he and 
his family have so long continued in posses- 
sion, and which have been lately granted 
by the Treasury to sir James Lowther, son- 
in-law to the earl of Bute. 

I do not mean here to make any reply to 
the futile arguments by which the ministers, 
or their advocate, endeavour to establish 
this point. Because the point itself is, as 
they know, wholly foreign to the question, 
and does in no sort concern the public. 
They shall not be permitted to evade in this 
manner the real edge of the charge that lies 
against them. 

The charge against them is not that they 
have granted to sir James Lowther an estate 
which, in law, is the right of the duke of 
Portland ; but that they partially, and in 
many parts of the proceeding, surreptitious- 
ly, upon the bare report of a subordinate 
officer, without suffering his vouchers to be 
examined, without hearing counsel, or 
allowing time or means of defence to the 
party, or of due information to themselves, 
have violated the equitable and presump- 
tive rights of long and undisputed posses- 
sion, for the purposes of undue influence at 
an election, and of paying a base court to a 
clandestine and dangerous power. 

This is the charge against them ; which 
they have not attempted to answer ; which 
they never can answer ; and which will fix 
a brand upon their foreheads, that no so- 
phistry will be able to efface, and no veils of 
ministerial artifice will be thick enough to 
conceal, from the eyes of an indignant and 
an injured people. 

The ministers affect to be surprised that 



the writer of the duke of Portland's case 
has taken no notice of his Grace's title, and 
has not set forth the surveyor-general's re- 
port against it : they are at liberty to amuse 
themselves with such observations. I hope 
that writer will never give them any dis- 
turbance in their learned pleadings on this 
subject. He has, I trust, too much sense 
to moot in the public papers the legal con- 
struction of a clause in a crown grant. 

It is a matter of perfect indifference to 
the public, whether the grant, for instance, 
of the manor of Dale is sufficient to convey 
Swale also as its appendant ; or whether 
Swale ought specifically to be named. 
These are not the sort of questions with 
which we are affected : the ministers may 
think it wise, perhaps, to hazard the good 
faith of a crown grant upon such subtle 
criticisms. Their operation one way or the 
other (if prescription had not intervened) 
would not have been a matter greatly to 
concern the pubHc ; but it does concern the 
public, and in the highest degree, whether 
long, quiet, undisputed possession, which 
is the best of titles against the subject, shall 
or shall not be a title at all against the 
crown ? Whether a Treasury, availing itself 
of a remnant of odious, and for a long time 
inactive, barbarism, shall upon points of 
legal subtilty endeavour to shake that title ? 
Whether they shall refuse a search of the 
only material office for settling the doubts 
that they raised ? Whether they shall de- 
cline taking the opinion of the king's law 
servants on such important points of law? 
Whether they shall refuse to hear the party 
by his counsel? And whether without any 
of those forms, some of justice, and all of 
decency and candour, they shall arm a 
wealthy and powerful informer with a crown 
claim to haiass and oppress the subject. 

These are the points in the duke of Port- 
land's case, in which the public is concern- 
ed. If no prescription is pleadable against 
the crown, and if the Treasury, without 
hearing, is suffered at pleasure to halloo an 
informer at your estate, on the bare report 
of a surveyor's duty, their own creature ; — 
woe to the property of England ! Remem- 



38o 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ber that almost all that property has at one 
time or other flowed from royal grants. No 
possessor, no purchaser, no mortgagee is 
safe ; no further safe than he is covered by 
the act of James the First, which is now 
sought to be converted from a temporary 
regulation into a perpetual rule of law. 

That truly wise and patriotic bill, which 
the ministerial gentlemen are pleased to 
term factious, was what our ancestors called 
for, and so far as it regarded themselves, 
obtained, on the alarm of just such sort of 
grants as this to sir James Lowther. They 
did not contend that the grants should be 
made, only in cases where the crown had a 
plausible title. No ; they maintained ' that 
such titles prior to sixty years should not be 
set up at all.' They demanded that the 
crown should litigate with the subject on 
the same terms of equity on which the sub- 
jects Utigated with one another ; and that 
sixty years of possession should bar a royal 
as well as a private claim. 

They lived, indeed, in an age of extrava- 
gant prerogative, and they could not obtain 
this right fully for posterity ; but they did 
what they could, and secured it for them- 
selves. The arguments of the ministry are 
not against the duke of Portland, but 
against the doctrine of prescription itself ; 
against natural justice ; and against the 
principles of that wise and constitutional, 
though (by the misfortune of its time) im- 
perfect law, the statute of the 21st of king 
James the First. 

What do we care, whether this dormant 
and antiquated claim of the crown be well 
or ill founded in strict law ? I take it for 
granted, that it has no foundation ; and 
make no sort of doubt that when it comes 
to trial, it will appear scandalously ground- 
less. Besides the favourable presumption 
that ought to operate for possession, the 
whole conduct of the Treasury gives me a 
right to conclude against them. If they 
were so sure of the validity of their claim, 
why did they not a little discuss the grounds 



^ As this letter is frequently alluded to by Ju- 
nius in the course of the present work, v/e shall 
here insert a copy of it : — 



of the surveyor's report, and order him to 
produce his vouchers ? How could M hurt 
this or any other fair claim (supposing this 
a fair one) to have the records in his office 
inspected ? Would a fair claim be hurt by 
having it openly and solemnly debated by 
counsel? Any set of men who have regard 
even to decorum in their injustice, could 
never have acted with this barefaced par- 
tiality to one person, and with such a scan- 
dalous spirit of oppression towards another. 
It was in their official capacity they ought 
to have seen the right of the crown to make 
this grant defended, and the right of the 
duke of Portland examined. They ought 
to have had the king's counsel to cover 
them with their opinions and arguments in 
point of law ; and not to have first passed 
the grant without hearing or examination, 
and then trusted for their apology to a legal 
discussion argued miserably, and without 
authority, in a common newspaper. Their 
arguments might have been produced with 
some grace and some weight to the public, 
when it was known that they had been 
officially considered, and fairly canvassed 
among all the parties concerned, before the 
act was done ; and that these arguments 
were the grounds of their conduct, not 
excuses for their delinquency. At present 
they can only excite contempt for their weak 
defence of those actions, whose atrocious- 
ness had before merited the abhorrence of 
all good men. 

VALERIUS. 



LETTER XXIV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 May, 1768. 

An officer of the guards on whose 
veracity I can rely, has informed me, that 
the secretary at war has thought proper to 
write a letter of thanks to the commanding 
officer of the troops lately employed in St 
George's Fields.^ The substance of it, as 



' Sir, War-office, 11 May, 1768. 

' Having this day had the honour of 
mentioning to the king the behaviour of the de- 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



381 



well as I can remember, is rather of an 
extraordinary nature, and I think deserves 
the attention and consideration of the pub- 
lic. I understand that his Lordship thanks 
them in the king's name, for their good 
behaviour, and assures them, that his 
Majesty highly approves of their conduct. 
He further engages his promise, that what- 
i ever bad consequences may ensue, they may 
depend upon the utmost assistance and sup- 
port that his office can afford them.i W'ith- 
out entering into the evidence on which the 
coroner's verdict against an officer and 
some soldiers of the guards was founded, 
I shall not scruple to say that this mention 
of the king's name is very improper and 
indecent. The father of his people un- 
doubtedly laments the fatal necessity which 
has occasioned the murder of one of his 
subjects, but cannot be supposed to approve 
highly of a conduct which has had dread- 
ful consequences. An event of this shock- 
ing nature may admit of excuse and miti- 
gation from circumstances of necessity, 
but can never be the object of the highest 
royal approbation ; — much less was it pro- 
per to signify such strong approbation of a 



tachments from the several battalions of foot- 
guards which have been lately employed in 
assisting the civil magistrates, and preserving 
the public peace, I have great pleasure in in- 
forming you, that his Majesty highly approved 
of the conduct of both the officers and men, and 
means that his I\Iajesty's approbation should be 
communicated to them through you. Employing 
the troops on so disagreeable a service always 
gives me pain ; but the circumstances of the 
times make it necessary. I am persuaded they 
see that necessity, and will continue, as they 
have done, to perform their duty with alacrity. I 
beg you will be pleased to assure them that every 
possible regard shall be shown to them : their 
zeal and good behaviour upon this occasion de- 
serve it ; and in case any disagreeable circum- 
stance should happen in the execution of their 
duty, they shall have every defence and protec- 
tion that the law can authorize, and this office 
can give. 

*-I have the honour to be, 
'Sir, 
'Your most obedient, and most 
humble servant, 

' Barrington.' 
' Field officer in staff waiting for the 
three regiments of foot-guards. 
' Officers for guard on Saturday next, 
Lieut. -col. Groin, &.C. &c.' — Edit. 



conduct which includes a fact still sub j ted ice, 
and the particulars of which are not yet 
known with any degree of certainty. 

The secretary at war would have done 
better in confining his letter to the expres- 
sion of his own sentiments. What he has 
said for himself, if I am rightly informed, 
will require more wit than he possesses to 
defend. For the mere benefit of the law, I 
presume, the prisoners will hardly thank 
him. It is a benefit they are entitled to, 
and will certainly have whether he and his 
office interfere or not. If he means any 
thing more, let him look to his words. 
But I hold it to be highly unconstitutional, 
as well as illegal, to promise official support 
and protection to either party in a criminal 
case, wherein the king prosecutes for the 
loss of his subject. There is a degree of 
folly in a minister of the crown signing 
such a letter which looks like infatuation ; 
but I hope the Court of King's Bench, or 
some other court, will let him know what 
the law calls abetment and maintenance, 
and bring him to his senses. 
Yours, 

FIAT JUSTITIA ! 



LETTER XXV. 

For the Public Advertiser. 

I July, 1768. 
TO MASTER HARRY IN BLACK-BOY- ALLEY. 

A t tu, sivnil obligastl 

Perfidton votis caput, enigrescis 
A trior Diulto. 

The moment I heard you had 



^ In the riot here alluded to, which originated 
from a vast concourse of people assembled toge- 
ther opposite the King's Bench prison, on May 
10, in the expectation that Wilkes would be 
liberated from it on this day in order to take his 
seat in parliament (it being the first day of its 
session), about fourteen persons were shot and 
more wounded by the precipitate firing of the 
military. Among the rest was a young man of 
the name of Allen, who had taken no part in the 
tumult, and was slain in an out-house belonging 
to his father (who lived in the neighbourhood), in 
the very act of imploring mercy of the soldiers 
who shot him. Some of the military more im- 
mediately engaged were secured by the civil 
power, and were on the point of taking their 
trial for the murder. And it is to this transaction 
the letter alludes.— Edit. 



382 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



given a positive promise to lord Rocking- 
ham in my favour, I did you the justice to 
be satisfied that all my hopes and preten- 
sions to succeed Mrs M^ere at an end. 

But a second promise, which I understand 
you have lately given to another, revives 
my spirits, and makes me flatter myself 
that you mean me no harm. I have one 
chance less against me than I had, for your 
last resolution is certainly the one you will 
not abide by ; so that at present there is 
nothing in my way but your engagement to 
lord Rockingham, the bad effects of which 
I shall endeavour to remove by this letter. 
I feel as strongly as you how much it would 
violate the consistency of your character to 
keep your word from any motives of probity 
or good faith ; but if I can suggest to you 
the means of performing your first promise 
to lord Rockingham, and yet continuing as 
great a rascal as you would wish to be, all 
objections on the score of integrity will be 
removed, and you will owe me no small 
obligation into the bargain. You are a 
mere boy, Harry, notwithstanding the 
down upon your chin, and would do well 
to cultivate the friendship of women of ex- 
perience. With all due submission to Miss 
Nancy's 1 personal knowledge of the world, 
I believe she has not yet taught you the 
secret of keeping your word without hurt- 
ing your principles. This is a science 
worthy of a superior genius ; and without 
a compUment, Harry, you have talents to 
improve it into a system of treachery, which, 
though it may shorten your natural life, 
will make your reputation immortal. , 

In the first place, I presume, you will 
have no difficulty in breaking your word 

with Mrs C y ; the whole distress lies in 

keeping it with your friend the Marquis. 
My advice is, therefore, that you should 
order Mr Bradshaw to write to his Lord- 
ship, and assure him in the civilest terms, 
that ' circumstances which you had not 
foreseen ; — that it was with infinite con- 
cern ; — that his Lordship's recom.menda- 
tion had such weight with you ; — that in 



Nancy Parsons. — Edit. 



any other instance ;— that you flattered 
yourself his Lordship would be candid 
enough to distinguish between the minister 
and the man ; — but that in short you were 
so unfortunately situated, «&c. &c. &c.' 
Mr Bradshaw's manner will make the mes- 
sage palatable, and it would not be amiss 
if he were to carry it himself. Having dis- 
engaged yourself from lord Rockingham, 
you must at the same instant write me a 
letter of congratulation, and desire me to 
take possession immediately. By these ex- 
pedients you will preserve all the duplicity 
and wayward humour of your character ; 
— you will have the merit and satisfaction 
of faiHng to two people : you will confer a 
favour without obliging anybody ; and 
your enemies give you credit for a conduct 
equally honourable to your morals and 
your understanding. 

Farewell, Harry, and believe me to be, 
with the most perfect contempt, yours, 

POMONA. 

P. S. If the place is to be given in trust 
for Miss Parsons, I beg leave to withdraw 
my pretensions ; for I am determined not 
to suffer a woman to be quartered upon me 
in any shape. 



LETTER XXVI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 July, 1768. 

The spirit which once animated 
the London Gazette seems to have expired 
with the war. The learned compiler of 
that paper was blest with a genius equal to 
the description of battles and victories, but 
could not descend with dignity to the 
pacific annals of domestic economy. While 
our troops were sacrificed abroad, his pen 
was employed, with equal bravery, in mur- 
dering our language at home. He never 
lost a consonant from the Elbe to the 
Weser, or mollified one circumstance in all 
the guttural pomp of a German campaign. 
But, unfortunately for the world, his style 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



383 



perished with his subject, and we see him 
now hardly able to support the fatigue of 
advertising court-mourning, and introduc- 
ing foreign ministers under the auspices of 
Mr Stephen Cotterell. The gentle slumbers 
of the ministry prevail over the Gazette, in 
which their dreams are recorded ; and if 
ever we see the author betray a sign of life, 
it is only when his principals turn in their 
sleep. I presume we owe the Gazette of 
last Tuesday ^ to an i?isofnnium with which 
these gentlemen are sometimes troubled. 
The new commission of trade bears all the 
marks of that drowsy wildness which pos- 
sesses a man, when he would fain go to 
sleep, but is so sore all over that he does 
not know which side to lie upon. One day 
we have a third secretary of state for a new 
fancy. Next day down goes poor lord 
Clare (not all the softness of his manners 
nor modest eloquence cari save him) and up 
gets the new secretary to represent them 
both. Hence we might have expected a 
pause of a few minutes, but these gentle- 
men are too modest to be satisfied with any 
thing they do ; and now for measures of 
vigour with a vengeance ! The chief 
officers of the crown, having little else to 
do, are called from their respective depart- 
ments ; the prayers of a reverend prelate 
are desired ; Messieurs Rice, Jenyns, Fitz- 
herbert, Ehot, and Robinson still contribute 
their mites, and Wills earl of Hillsborough 
is dtily to attend the ineetings. The colonies 
must be ungovernable indeed if such a junto 
cannot govern them. In the last article the 
writer of the Gazette is particularly fortun- 
ate, and avails himself with his usual dex- 
terity of all the advantage of publishing 
nonsense by authority. This due attend- 



^ The following is a copy of the article alluded 
to: 

Whitehall, 12 Jtdy. 

' The king has been pleased to constitute and 
appoint the lord high chancellor ; the first com- 
missioner of his Majesty's Treasury ; the lord 
president of the council ; the first commissioner 
of the Admiralty ; his Majesty's principal secre- 
taries of state ; the chancellor of his Majesty's 
Exchequer ; the lord bishop of London ; and the 
surveyor and auditor-general of all his Majesty's 
revenues in America, for the time being ; to- 



ance will mean any thing or nothing just as 
the reader chooses. By the mark set upon 
Wills, it should seem that the other com- 
missioners are /!ot duly to attend the meet- 
ings ; or perhaps government, with a laud- 
able caution, means to guard against any 
undue attendance of the said Wills ; they 
may possibly mean that Wills alone shall 

be a quorum ; or it may be but to guess 

at their meaning is to reason without data, 
so I leave it, as they have done, to be ex- 
plained by contingencies. 

After all, Mr Printer, these are feverish 
symptoms, and look as if the disorder were 
coming to a crisis. Even this last effort is 
the forerunner of their speedy dissolution ; 
hke the false strength of a delirium, which 
exerts itself by fits, and dies in convulsions. 

C.2 



LETTER XXVII. 



TO MR WOODFALL. 



Sir, 21 July, 1768. 

I COULD not help smiling at your 
correspondent C.'s dreaming animadversion, 
in your paper of yesterday, upon the com- 
mission of the board of trade. He modestly 
fancies himself awake, while all the minis- 
try are enveloped in darkness and dreams, 
and, according to him, only stir to stir no 
more. Thus drunkards imagine that every 
body reels, and that the world itself is in 
disorder. 

He owns that his assertions are the result 
of guess, and that his reasonings are with- 
out the necessary data. He might have 
spared himself that trouble ; everybody will 
tell him the same. Vastly displeased with 



gether with Soamc Jenyns, Edward Eliot, 
George Rice, John Roberts, Jeremiah Dyson, 
William Fitzherbert, and Thomas Robinson, 
Esqrs., to be commissioners for promoting trade, 
and for inspecting and improving his Majesty's 
plantations in America, and elsewhere. And his 
Majesty has thought fit to direct that Wills, earl 
of Hillsborough, one of his said principal secre- 
taries of state, shall duly attend the meetings of 
his said commissioners.' — Edit. 

^ To this letter was given a short answer, 
which, as it produced a reply from Junius, is 
here inserted. — Edit. 



384 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the compiler of the Gazette, he drops him 
to abuse his principals ; and because they 
do not, or choose not, to furnish his empty- 
brain with chat for a day, or with battles, 
sieges, and victories in time of peace, they 
are therefore doing nothing, or at best are 

but dreaming like himself. As he most 

sagaciously begins without his data, so he 
proceeds (as Mr Locke says) by seeing a 
little, perhaps like a man half awake, pre- 
smniug a great deal, arid then jumping to a 
concluno7i. This, it is owned, he has admir- 
ably well done. He reads in the Gazette, 
that several of the chief officers of the crown, 
the bishop of London, and some others, are 
appointed, together with Messieurs Jenyns, 
Rice, Eliot, Fitzherbert, and Robinson 
(whom he very decently and liberally styles 
?i junto), to be commissioners for trade and 
plantations, and that the earl of Hills- 
borough is duly to attend their meetings. 
This throws our gentleman into a trance 
(convincing the world that his ignorance 
and insomnia are well blended), and fraught 
with this intelligence, he avers that all these 
respectable personages are new commis- 
sioners ; whereas in fact, from the original 
constitution of the board of trade, they 
have a right to sit there in virtue of their 
respective offices, though not obliged as 
Messrs Jenyns, &c. to a due and constant 
attendance. In every new commission of 
the board of trade these officers for the 
time being are inserted at length ; and at 
the same time, on account of their other 
public avocations, they are therein released 
from the obligation of continually sitting at 
that board. As the business of the colonies 
has of late years much increased, it was 
judged necessary by the crown to appoint 
one other principal secretary of state for the 
transaction of colony affairs, which are 
daily increasing in their importance to this 
kingdom ; and, perhaps, the noble Lord 
who is chosen to this direction, and whose 
masterly abilities are the object of your 
correspondent's invidious scurrility, is the 
only man of rank adequate to this ar- 
duous task in the present crisis. His 
Lordship is also to preside at the board 



of trade, for the facility and dispatch of 
business, and will thereby save the govern- 
ment (as he has no salary) the expense of a 
first commissioner. He is duly to attend 
the meetings of that board, which cannot, 
as Mr C. would wisely obtrude upon the 
public judgment, mean any thing or nothing 
at pleasure ; for when there are no meet- 
ings his Lordship cannot attend, but when 
there are, it is his duty. This, every man 
who is awake can understand ; but as for 
such dreamers as good Master C., I wish 
they might sleep more soundly, till the pa- 
triotism they attack is extinguished ; and 
then I believe the world will not be much 
disturbed with the impertinent visions of 
such unquiet repose. 

INSOMNIS. 



LETTER XXVIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 23 July, 1768. 

I AM willing to join issue with 
your correspondent Insomnis, that one of 
us is fast asleep, and submit to be tried by a 
jury of plain Enghshmen, who may be sup- 
posed to understand their own language. 
If their verdict be given against him, all I 
desire is that you will not expose his in- 
firmity to the public, or suffer him to say 
things in his sleep, which his modesty 
will blush for when he wakes. 

In the first place, I never averred that 
they were all new commissioficrs, though I 
spoke of a new cornmission. Is it possible 
for a man to be awake and not distinguish 
between these expressions ? But now for a 
curious discovery : the great officers of 
state, it seems, are bound and released by 
one and the same act ; that is, they are 
bound to the public, and released in pri- 
vate. They figure away as men of business 
in the Gazette, yet by a secret stipulation 
are relieved from the trouble of attendance. 
If Malagrida had any interest with the 
present ministry, I should have no doubt 
that this was one of his subtle contrivances. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



38s 



An ostensible engagement, with a mental 
reservation, is the first principle of the mo- 
rale relachie, professed and inculcated by 
the Society of Jesus. 

Now, Sir, observe how carefully the ex- 
ample is adapted to the doctrine. The 
state of the colonies evidently demanded 
some extraordinary measures of wisdom 
and of vigour. A pompous hst of names is 
held forth to the pubhc, as if the ministry 
were roused by the importance and diffi- 
culty of the present conjuncture, and were 
determined to face it with their whole 
strength and abilities. Such was the 
appearance which the new commission was 
intended to convey, and in this hght I am 
very sure it was received by the public ; yet 
Insomnis is so candid as to tell us, that 
the ministiy meant no such thing ; and I 
believe him very sincerel)^ A council is in- 
stituted which is never to sit, and commis- 
sioners are appointed on condition they shall 
never attend : a common way of throwing 
dust into the eyes of the public, and 
frequently practised with success ; but I 
believe it is rather uncommon for a minis- 
terial advocate to make so early and frank 
a confession of truths, which, though they 
may answer other purjDoses, will do his 
patrons but little honour in point of credit 
and veracity. 

' Go to, go to, you have known luhat yoii should 
not.'' 

A man who talks in his sleep is not fit 
for a confidential secretary, at least to a 
ministry who have so many secrets to con- 
ceal. 

If the duplicity of this contrivance had 
concerned themselves alone, I should have 
been contented with comparing it with the 
rest of their conduct, and thought no more 
of it. But I own it fills me with indigna- 
tion to see the name of a reverend prelate 
so indecently treated. The respect due to 
his personal character, if not to the sanctity 
of his station, should have preserved him 
from so gross an outrage. To see a prelate 
of the first rank mixed in a low Jesuitical 
farce of imposing upon the public with a 



great council, when no such matter is 
intended ! — Seriously, Sir, I should not be 
surprised if his Lordship were to prosecute 
the writer of the Gazette for a libel. For 
my own part. Sir, I would rather see my 
name advertised among a company of buf- 
foons at Bartlemy fair, than prostituted in 
a ministerial junto, to deceive and to cheat 
my country. A farce upon the stage may 
amuse at least, if not instruct, but minis- 
terial farces are too dull to please, and 
seldom conclude without mischief to the 
audience, 

I admit one proposition gravely advanced 
by Insomnis, ' that when there are no 
meetings, lord Hillsborough cannot at- 
tend them ; ' but I am not quite so clear 
about the article of expense. The salary of 
a first commissioner of trade, at three 
thousand pounds a year, is saved by ap- 
pointing a third secretary of state at six or 
seven, besides all the expense of a new 
office. But Insomnis unfortunately forgets 
that if Mr Thomas Townshend, contrary to 
all expectation, had not refused the vice- 
treasurership (because the offer of it was 
attended with an insult) there would have 
been no room to provide for lord Clare, 
consequently he must have remained first 
commissioner of trade, and all this charm- 
ing plan of economy, facility, and dispatch 
must have waited till another opportunity. 

And now, Mr hisomnis, I shall leave you 
to your repose. Your patrons indeed may 
turn, and turn, and get no rest ; but what 
occasion is there for your sitting up to 
watch them ? 

' Thou, quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep. ^ 
Above all things let me recommend it to 
you, never to pretend to be awake for the 
future. Your eyes and ears, perhaps, are 
open, but their sense is shut, and really it is 
not very polite of you to come into company 
in your night-cap. 

C. 



386 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXIX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 30 July, 1768. 

It is not many months since ^ you 
gave me an opportunity of demonstrating 
to the nation, as far as rational inference 
and probability could extend, that the 
hopes which some men seemed to enter- 
tain, or to profess jat least, with regard to 
America, were without a shadow of found- 
ation. They seemed to flatter themselves 
that the contest with the colonies, like a 
disagreeable question in the House of 
Commons, might be put off to a long day, 
and provided they could get rid of it for the 
present, they thought it beneath them to 
consult either their own reputation, or the 
true interests of their country. But what- 
ever were their views or expectations, 
whether it was the mere enmity of party, or 
the real persuasion that they had but a 
little time to live in office, 2 every circum- 
stance which I then foretold is confirmed 
by experience. The conduct of the king's 
servants in relation to America, since the 
alteration in 1765, never had a reasonable 
argument to defend it, and the chapter of 
accidents which they implicitly relied on, 
has not produced a single casualty in their 
favour. At a crisis like this. Sir, I shall not 
be very solicitous about those idle forms of 
respect, which men in office think due to 
their characters and station ; neither will I 
descend to a language beneath the import- 
ance of the subject I write on. When 
the fate of Great Britain is thrown upon 
the hazard of a die, by a weak, distracted, 
worthless ministry, an honest man will 
always express all the indignation he feels. 
This is not a moment for preserving forms, 
and the ministry must know that the lan- 
guage of reproach and contempt is now the 
universal language of the nation. 

We find ourselves at last reduced to the 

* See Miscellaneous Letter, No. X.— Edit. 
^ The Rockingham administration, which 



dreadful alternative of either making war 
upon our colonies, or of suffering them to 
erect themselves into independent states. 
It is not that T hesitate now upon the choice 
we are to make. Everything must be ha- 
zarded. But what infamy, what punish- 
ment do those men deserve, whose folly or 
whose treachery hath reduced us to this 
state, in which we can neither give up the 
cause without a certainty of ruin, nor main- 
tain it without such a struggle as must 
shake the empire? If they had the most 
distant pretence for saying that the present 
conjuncture has arisen suddenly, that it 
was not foreseen and could not be provided 
for, we should only have reason to lament 
that our affairs were committed to such 
ignorance and blindness. But when they 
have had every notice that it was possible 
to receive, when the proceedings of the 
colonies have for a considerable time been 
not less notorious than alarming, what 
apology have they left? Upon what prin- 
ciple will they now defend themselves ? 
From the first appearance of that rebellious 
spirit which has spread itself all over the 
colonies, the chief members of the present 
ministry were the declared advocates of 
America. Every art of palliation, of con- 
cealment, and even of justification, was 
made use of in favour of that country 
against Great Britain. Some there were 
who did not even scruple to pledge them- 
selves for the future submission and loyalty of 
the colonies . Every prin ciple of government 
was subverted, and such absurdities main- 
tained as common sense should blush for. 
When all these arguments failed, and when 
the proceedings of the colonies gave the lie 
to every declaration made for them by their 
patrons here, still the ministry thought it 
not too late for further temporizing and de- 
lay. Even after the combination at Boston 
they would not suffer parhament to be in- 
formed of the real state of things in that 
province. They endeavoured to conceal 
the most atrocious circumstances, and what 
they could not conceal they justified. Mr 



lasted from July 10, 1765, to July 30, 1766. — ■ 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



387 



Conway 1 since last December has, in the 
face of the House of Commons, defended 
the resistance of the colonies upon what 
he called revolution principles ; and when 
a paper, printed at Boston, was offered to 
the House, as containing matter of the 
highest importance for the information of 
parhament, the ministry would not suffer it 
to be read because they knew it would 
be found too bad to be passed over. . 

If we look for their motives, we shall find 
them such as weak and interested men 
usually act upon. They were weak enough 
to hope that the crisis of Great Britain and 
America would be reserved for their suc- 
cessors in office, and they were determined 
to hazard even the ruin of their countr)'-, 
rather than furnish the man 2 whom they 
feared and hated, with the melancholy tri- 
umph of having truly foretold the con- 
sequences of their own misconduct. But 
this, such as it is, the triumph of a heart 
that bleeds at every vein, they cannot de- 
prive him of. They dreaded the acknow- 
ledgment of his superiority over them, and 
the loss of their own authority and credit, 
more than the rebelUon of near half the 
empire against the supreme legislature. 
On this patriotic principle they exerted 
their utmost efforts to defer the decision of 
this great national cause till the last pos- 
sible moment. The timidity, weakness, 
and distraction of government at home, 
gave spirits, strength, and union to the 
colonies, and the ministry seemed deter- 
mined to wait for a declaration of war with 
our natural enemy, before they attempted 
to suppress the rebellion of our natural 
subjects. At last, however, they are com- 
pelled to take a resolution which ought to 
have been taken many months ago, and 
might then have been pursued with honour 
to themselves, and safety to this country. 
How they will support it is uncertain, A 
resolution, adopted by a small majority in 
a divided council, can be but little depend- 



^ INIr Conway moved the repeal of Mr Gran- 
ville's Stamp Act, and introduced the Declara- 
tory Act.— Edit. 

^ George Greuville.— Edit. 



ed on. It must want the first strength of 
union, and what effect can we hope for 
even from a vigorous measure, when the 
execution of it is committed, most pro- 
bably, to one of the persons who have pro- 
fessed themselves the patrons of lenient 
moderate measures, until the very name of 
lenity and moderation became ridiculous? 
They will execute by halves ; they will 
temporize and look out for expedients ; 
they will increase the mischief; they will 
defer the stroke until we are actually in- 
volved in a war with France ; and when 
they have made the game desperate, they 
will resign their places, to save themselves, 
if possible, from the resentment of their 
country. 

:. In this situation I am rather afflicted 
than surprised at the shock which public 
credit has just received. The weight of 
the funds is of itself sufficient to press them 
down. How then should it be possible for 
them to stand against evils, which separ- 
ately might overturn the most flourishing 
state, and which are fatally at this moment 
united against Great Britain. The rebellion 
of her subjects ; the too probable appre- 
hension of a foreign war ; and a weak, dis- 
tracted administration at home. Yet, Sir, 
I. hope there is still blood enough in our 
veins to make a noble stand even against 
these comphcated mischiefs. Far from 
despairing of the republic, I know we have 
great resources left, if they are not lost or 
betrayed. A firm united administration, 
with the uniform direction of one man of 
^\isdom and spirit, may yet preserve the 
state. It is impossible to conceal from 
ourselves, that we are at this moment on 
the brink of a dreadful precipice ; the 
question is, whether we shall still submit 
to be guided by the hand which hath driven 
us to it, or whether we shall follow the pa- 
triot voice 3 which has not ceased to warn 
us of our dangers, and which would still 
declare the way to safety and to honour. 



3 Mr G. Grenville's. See this subject further 
continued in Miscellaneous Letter, No. XXXI. 
—Edit. 



388 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 5 Angvst, 1768. 

An unmerited outrage offered to a 
great or a good man naturally excites some 
emotions of resentment even in hearts that 
have the least esteem for virtue. At par- 
ticular moments the worst of men forget 
their principles, and pay to superior worth 
an involuntary tribute of sympathy or ap- 
plause. We ought to think well of human 
nature vv^hen we see how frequently the 
most profligate minds are generous without 
reflection. But if a case should happen, 
wherein a character not merely of private 
virtue, but of public merit, receives an in- 
sult equally indecent and ungrateful, this 
common concern is increased by that share 
of interest, which every man claims to him- 
self in the public welfare. A government, 
shameless or ill-advised enough to treat 
with disregard the obligation due to public 
services, not only sets a most pernicious 
example to its subjects, but does a flagrant 
injury to society, which every member of it 
ought to resent. Reflections such as these 
crowded upon my mind the moment that I 
heard that the late commander-in-chief in 
America had been dismissed without cere- 
mony from his government of Virginia. I 
was grieved to see such a man so treated, 
but when I considered this step as an omen 
of the real resolution of the ministry with 
respect to America, I forgot, as he himself 
will do, the private injury, and lamented 
nothing but the public misfortune. At a 
time when the most backward of the king's 
servants have been compelled to acknow- 
ledge the necessity of vigorous measures, 
when these measures are held out to the 
nation with a declaratory assurance that 
now at last we are determined , the resolu- 
tion to deprive sir Jeffery Amherst of his 
post in America cannot but be received as a 
direct contradiction to all those professions. 
If they had sincerely meant to do their duty 
to their country ; if they had really adopted 



measures of vigour, and wished to carry 
them into execution, instead of depriving 
him of his post, they would have solicited 
him to return to America, and take upon 
him the conduct of those measures. His 
prudence and moderation are as well 
known as his spirit and firmness, and who 
will dare to say that he would have refused 
an employment which the service of his 
king and country called upon him to 
accept? He went to America in circum- 
stances as little favourable as the present ; 
he met an enemy at all times formidable, 
and at that juncture strengthened by suc- 
cess. He conquered that enemy, and 
united the dominion of the whole continent 
to Great Britain. In every light he was the 
man to have been chosen, if the ministry 
had really meant to execute their own re- 
solution with vigour. But if it be their 
design to surrender every point to America, 
they could not have acted more consistently 
with such a plan, than by dismissing sir 
Jeffery Amherst from his post, and appoint- 
ing lord Boutetort to succeed him. No 
collusive bargain could have been made 
with the former, nor any base unworthy 
compliances expected from him. He had 
honour, as much as any man, to lose, nor 
even felt the necessity of repairing a broken 
fortune. Had he been entrusted with a 
command upon this important occasion, 
he would have executed the declared, not 
the secret, purpose of the administration. 
With such a character it is easy to see how 
unfit he was to be trusted with the conduct 
of measures destined to perish at their 
birth. But although he might not be 
entitled to the confidence of the king's serv- 
ants, in what instance has he deserved 
such ungrateful treatment? Could they 
find no other man to mark out to the pub- 
he as an object of slight and disrespect ? 
Could the wantonness of their power find 
no other way of providing for a needy 
dependant ? Surely, Sir, the choice was at 
least injudicious. Lord Hillsborough might 
have found some more honourable method 
of distinguishing his entrance into adminis- 
tration ; nor do I think it a very favourable 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



389 



omen to lord Boutetort, that his patrons 
have fixed upon Virginia as a retreat for 
his distresses. Seven years are too many 
to spare out of a life of sixty, to say 
nothing of the rarity of a man's returning 
from that country and surviving the next 
sessions. 

L. L. 



LETTER XXXI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 August, 1768. 

Whether it be matter of honour 
or reproach, it is at least a singular circum- 
stance, that whoever is hardy enough to 
maintain the cause of Great Britain against 
subjects who disown her authority, or to 
raise his voice in defence of the laws and 
constitution, is immediately pointed out to 
the pubUc for Mr Grenville's friend. From 
such language one would think that the 
order of things was inverted, and that con- 
spiracy had changed its nature. Mr Gren- 
ville and his friends it seems are suspected 
of some dangerous designs, not to destroy, 
but to preserve the laws and constitution of 
their country. This is certainly a reproach 
of the latest invention. I know there are 
men whose characters are safe against sus- 
picions of this sort, and who form their 
friendships upon other more useful maxims. 
But whether it be owing to the weakness of 
his understanding, or to the simplicity of 
his heart, that he pursues a conduct so 
useless to himself and so suspicious to the 
administration, it is surely a pardonable 
error, and what an Englishman may yet 
forgive. It is true he professes doctrines 
which would be treason in America, but, in 
England at least, he has the laws of his 
side, and if it be a crime to support the 
supremacy of the British legislature, the 
Sovereign, the Lords, and Commons are as 
guilty as he is. The ministry indeed have 
no share in the charge, and it would be un- 
candid not to confess that their regard for 
the honour and interest of this country is 



upon the same level with their friendship 
for Mr Grenville. 

For my own part, whatever your corre- 
spondents, Modei-ator and Tandem, may 
I think of me, I shall content myself with 
[ some interior feehngs which I fancy they 
are not much acquainted with ; nor will I 
perplex them with a language they are in- 
capable of understanding. Whether I am 
determined by motives which an honest 
man might profess, or by such as those 
gentlemen usually act upon, is a point that 
will not admit of demonstration. I shall 
therefore leave their principles out of the 
question, and try what their arguments 
amount to. 

Moderator and I are, for the most part, 
agreed. He allows 'that government is 
sunk into a contemptible state ; that their 
measures have failed of success, and is con- 
I vinced that if the reverse had been prac- 
tised, the mischief had been avoided." 
What conclusion his understanding will 
draw from these premises, I do not know ; 
but I think the most violent enemy of the 
present administration could not have 
argued more strongly for a change of 
hands and a change of measures. 

The author of the second letter, finding 
nothing that will answer his purpose in the 
present state of things, is obliged to carry 
us back to the original question of the right 
and expediency of taxing America. I shall 
not enter into the question of right, because 
it has been already determined by the legis- 
lature, to which an Englishman still owes 
some degree of submission. For the matter 
of expediency, an advocate for the present 
ministry seems to me to arraign his patrons 
when he argues against it. One part of 
them uniformly concurred with Mr Gren- 
ville in forming the Stamp Act, and in 
opposing the repeal of it. The other, to 
serve the purposes of party, repealed that 
act, yet showed by their conduct that they 
approved of the equitable principle on 
which it was founded, that America should 
contribute a httle to the support of the 
public expense. The repeal of the Stamp 
Act has been followed by other acts more 



390 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



offensive to the colonies, more directly ex- 
erting the right of taxation, and which will 
hardly be executed without some extra- 
ordinary efforts on the part of government. 
Was the act for suspending the assembly 
of New York recommended by Mr Gren- 
ville ? Or was it he who advised the duties 
on paper, glass, &c. imported into the 
colonies? No, Sir, his successors have 
paid him the highest compliment by imi- 
tating the 'system which they had affected 
to condemn ; and in fact they have carried 
his principles further than he did, or pro- 
bably than he would have carried them. 
But it is the natural defect of a weak di- 
vided administration, that they can neither 
resolve with moderation, nor execute with 
firmness. 

As to the c|uestions which your last cor- 
respondent puts to me, with a sort of heat 
and petulance not very decent, one plain 
answer will, I believe, be sufficient. If the 
pretensions of the colonies had not been 
abetted by something worse than a faction 
here, the Stamp Act would have executed 
itself. Every clause of it was so full and 
expUcit that it wanted no further instruc- 
tion ; nor was it . of that nature that re- 



^ The following letter from Mr G. Grenville 
to Mr Knox, formerly under secretary of state 
to lord Hillsborough, is extracted from the 
second volume of a small work published by Mr 
Knox, entitled 'Extra Official State Papers,' 
and is here copied to give the reader an idea of 
the political sentiments entertained by Mr Gren- 
ville with respect to America, as developed by 
himself in his private correspondence with this 
gentleman. 

Dear Sir, Woolton, 28 Atigjist, 1768. 

The account which you gave to me in 
your letter of the 23rd of this month, of the late 
transactions at Boston, seems so natural a con- 
sequence of the measures taken in Great Britain, 
and the state and temper of the government 
here, that whatever degree of concern it may 
give me, I cannot feel the least surprise at it. If 
the eyes of those who are most interested in this 
most unhappy situation had been sooner opened 
to_ the most obvious truths, many mischiefs 
might have been prevented ; if the authentic 
proofs which they have now received of what 
has happened, is not sufficient to convince them, 
I will venture to foretell without a spirit of pro- 
phecy, greater cala77tities -will, ivheji it is too 
late, rouse thejn ayid the whole kingdotjt/rojn 
the lethargy, as to all public measures, ifito 



quired a military hand to carry it into 
execution. For the truth of this answer I 
am ready to appeal even to the Americans 
themselves. As to the merit of having 
foreseen the unavoidable consequences of 
an inconsistent irresolute system of mea- 
sures, I shall place it as low as your corre- 
spondent can desire. Even he might have 
foreseen what has happened without wait- 
ing for the event. But to foretell those 
consequences ; — to speak truth to the 
nation ; — to warn even an adversary of his 
danger ; to persevere in this upright manly 
conduct, is indeed a merit of another sort, 
and reserved for other virtues. 1 

Your correspondent confesses that Mr 
Grenville is still respectable ; yet he warns 
the friends of that gentleman not to pro- 
voke him, lest he should tell them what 
they may not hke to hear. These are but 
words. He means as little when he threat- 
ens as when he condescends to applaud. 
Let us meet upon the fair ground of truth, 
and if he finds one vulnerable part in Mr 
Grenville's character, let him fix his poison- 
ed arrow there. 



which they have been, phviged. I have long 
feared that the co?iduct holden hi Great Britaitt 
wo2ild e?ico7irage and dehcde the subjects o/ 
America, till they wozdd co7ne to extreinities 
of 07ie ki7id, which W02ild too probably e7td 171 
extre77iities 071 the other side. I may appeal to 
you, as a private man, and as a member of par- 
liament, to my public declarations, that my 
opinions upon this subject have ever been uni- 
formly the same. They will still continue to be 
so, until I see much better reasons for changing 
them, than any which I have yet heard. What 
prospect there can now be that they will be 
attended with success, I cannot pretend to an- 
swer ; but if there is no plan formed upon the 
sound principles of this constitution, supported 
both by firmness and temper, I can answer, that 
no good success in the present difficult situation, 
can arise from one desultory measure after 
another. The respect and affection of its sub- 
jects is the basis on which every wise govern- 
ment must be founded ; but if that foundation 
has been once overturned, it is not the work of a 
day to temper the materials, so as to unite and 
rebuild them, especially If the workmen shall be 
daily changed, and each work by a different rule 
and line from that of his predecessor. 
I am, &c. 
Edit. GEO. GRENVILLE. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS, 



391 



LETTER XXXII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 10 August, 1768. 

Your new correspondent Vir- 
gi?iiiis might have saved himself the trou- 
ble of dating his letter from the Carolina 
coffee-house. We are a httle better ac- 
quainted than he imagines with the style 
of the secretary of state's office, as well as 
with the facts respecting sir Jeffery Am- 
herst's dismission. When he calls lord 
Boutetort the best of men, I suppose he 
means the best of courtiers. If bowing 
low and carrying the sword of state con- 
stitute merit and services, I confess there 
are few men to whom government is more 
indebted than to his Lordship. As to those 
insinuations \\"hich Virgin ius calls malevo- 
lent, it would have answered his purpose a 
little better if he could have proved them 
false. Why does he not? Because they 
are not only true, but notoriously true. 
What say you to the copper mines, Vir- 
giiiius ? I fancy his Lordship would not 
have been so fond of residing in Virginia, 
if he could have continued to reside here 
either with safety or convenience. Reflec- 
tions on characters merely private, ought, 
I own, to be discouraged. But let it be 
remembered that this courtier might have 
lived and died in obscurity, if he had not 
forced himself into the public notice, by 
robbing another man of an appointment, 
expressly given him in reward for the most 
honourable national services. The discon- 
tent of the province of Virginia at being 
governed by a lieutenant-governor instead 
of a governor is a mere fiction trumped up 
by lord Hillsborough and his secretary to 
serve this dirty purpose ; it was never heard 
of before, and if sir Jeffery Amherst was 
really desired to repair to his government, 
it was not only a most scandalous breach 
of conditions with him, but a most im- 
pudent mockery. Lord Hillsborough knew 
it was impossible he could return to America 
to be under the command of general Gage, 



and that therefore he might put the alter- 
native to him with safety. By this farce 
lord Hillsborough thought he could throw 
a colour upon the matter, and that the 
nation would be misled by it. What a 
poor contemptible artifice ! Thus it usually 
happens with bunglers. They cannot even 
be mischievous with dexterity, nor do a 
public injury without insulting the public 
understanding. 

LUCIUS. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 August, 1768, 

The greatest part of my property 
having been invested in the funds, I could 
not help paying some attention to rumours 
or events, by which my fortune might be 
affected : yet I never lay in wait to take 
advantage of a sudden fluctuation, much 
less would I make myself a bubble to bulls 
and bears, or a dupe to the pernicious arts 
practised in the alley. I thought a prudent 
man, who had any thing to lose, and really 
meant to do the best for himself and his 
family, ought to consider of the state of 
things at large, of the prospect before him, 
and the probabihty of particular events. 
A letter which appeared some dtays ago in 
the Public Advertiser, revived many serious 
reflections of this sort in my mind, because 
it seemed to be written with candour and 
judgment. The effect of those reflections 
was, that I did not hesitate to alter the 
situation of my property. I owe my thanks 
to that writer that 1 am safely lauded from 
a troubled ocean of fear and anxiety, on 
which I think I never will venture my for- 
tune and my happiness again. Perhaps it 
may not be useless to individuals to see the 
motives on which I have acted. 

In the first place, I consider this country 
as in a situation the like of which it never 
experienced before, but which the greatest 
empires have experienced in their turn. 
The successes of the late war had placed us 



392 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



at the highest pinnacle of military glory. 
Every external circumstance seemed to 
contribute to our prosperity ; the most : 
formidable of our enemies were reduced, 
and commerce had promised to increase 
with the extent of our dominion. But at 
this point I fear we met with our fie plus 
tiltrTt. The greatness of a kingdom cannot : 
long be stationary. That of Great Britain ' 
carried in itself an interior principle of 
weakness and decay. While the war con- 
tinued, our superiority at sea gave us an 
exclusive commerce with the richest quar- 
ters of the world, and supplied us with 
wealth to support such efforts as no nation 
ever made before. But when the conclu- 
sion of peace had restored our rivals to the 
enjoyment of their former trade, the very 
efforts which had maintained the war ren- 
dered it impossible for us to meet those 
rivals upon equal terms in foreign markets. 
The national debt had risen to a point so 
far beyond the reach of economical specu- 
lations, that the diminution of the principal 
almost ceased to be a question, and the 
ministry found difficulty enough in provid- 
ing funds for payment of the interest. 
Here then we find an interior principle of 
decay, the operation of which is not less 
certain than fatal. The increase of your 
debt requires a proportionate increase of 
'.rade, at the same time that it not only 
prevents that increase, but operates in the 
contrary direction. A newspaper will not 
admit of such a deduction, or I would un- 
dertake to demonstrate, that all the profit- 
able part of our foreign trade is lost, and 
that in what remains the balance is con- 
siderably against us. But the fact is 
notorious. The situation of our East-India 
trade is so far altered for the better, that 
we do not send such quantities of bulhon 
as heretofore to China, and indeed we have 
it not to send. Yet the resources of this 
trade are at the best but precarious : nor is 
the balance of it even now clearly in our 
favour. A single defeat in India (an event 
not quite out of the hmits of possibihty) 
would go near to annihilate the company. 
But it was in the colonies that our best and 



surest hopes were founded. Their exclu- 
sive commerce would have supported our 
home manufactures, when other markets 
failed, and rewarded us in some measure 
for i;hat security and extent of dominion 
which the blood and treasure of this coun- 
try had purchased for them. Here too our 
most reasonable expectations are disap- 
pointed. Not only the merchant who gives 
credit on the security of personal good faith 
is ruined by it, but, in a pubhc view, the 
sum of the debts of individuals is held out 
ill ierro7'em, to awe us into a compliance 
with pretensions which shake the founda- 
tion of our political existence. We shall 
be woefully deceived if we form our calcu- 
lations of the real state of trade, on the 
large commissions, long credit, or extensive 
enterprises of particular merchants. The 
commercial prosperity of a nation depends 
upon the certainty of the return, not on the 
magnitude of the venture. As things are 
now managed in the city, the greatest 
house falls first, and draws with it the ruin 
of a multitude of little ones. Next to the 
parties immediately concerned, the pubhc 
creditors will be the first to feel the conse- 
quences of this ruinous system. The funds 
allotted for their security, depend chiefly 
upon the produce of the customs ; these 
depend upon your trade, and it requires no 
prophet to foretell, that a false and ruinous 
system of trade cannot long be maintained. 
It begins with private beggary, and ends in 
public ruin. I do not pretend to say that 
the landholder will be quite at his ease, 
when pubhc credit is shaken. But his at 
least is a solid security ; the other a mere 
bubble, which the first rude breath of ill- 
fortune or of danger may reduce to nothing. 
I wish it could be proved, that any one 
circumstance in this representation is false 
or exaggerated. On the other hand, if it 
be true, the concealment of a moment 
more or less signifies nothing. It is agreed 
on all hands, that we are in no condition 
to meet a war. Our enemies know and 
presume upon it. The experience of many 
centuries sufficiently proves, that their 
natural restlessness will not long permit 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



393 



them to observe the conditions of any 
peace. At present they have other addi- 
tional motives to draw them into action. 
The articles of the last peace dishonoured 
them in the eyes of Europe. Necessity 
alone compelled them to submit to it. As 
long as the necessity subsists, the peace 
will be maintained. In the mean time, 
they hazard such strokes as would be a just 
foundation of a war, if we had strength or 
spirits to renew it. Dunkirk remains un- 
demolished, and Corsica ^ is added to the 
dominion of France. They know the 
miserable state of our finances, the distrac- 
tion and weakness of our government, and 
above all, the alarming differences which 
threaten a rupture with our colonies. To 
suppose that they will not take advantage 
of these circumstances, is supposing that a 
few years have changed the stamina of a 
French constitution. On the other hand, 
to say that they are as little in a condition 
to make war as ourselves is mere trifling. 
Their enterprises prove the contrary. Their 
finances are upon a much better footing 
than ours, and at the worst, they have a 
remedy, which a British parliament will 
never make use of, but in the last extrem- 
ity. The French apply it without scruple, 
and, as far as I can observe, without any 
bad effect to themselves. In short, they 
consider our weakness more than their own 
strength, in adherence to their old policy, 
que la foiblesse de V enneini fait notre pro- 
pre force. 

A prudent man, whose property is in the 
funds, would do well to consider the truth 
of this representation. What security has 
he, when the shghtest rumour of bad news 
from America robs him of four or five per 
cent, upon his capital, when worse news 
from that quarter is expected every hour, 
and when the expectation of a foreign war 
is founded on facts and reasoning strong 
enough to constitute the clearest moral 
certainty? To say that pubUc credit has 
hitherto passed safely through the fiery 



^ See Letters III. and XII., in which the sub- 
ject is again mentioned by the author and ex- 
plained in the notes. — Edit. 



trial of war and rebellion, proves nothing. 
No conclusion can be drawn from a debt 
of forty-six millions, at which it stood in 
1740, to the present debt of one hundred 
and forty miUions. At that time our re- 
sources were hardly known, at this period 
they are known and exhausted. We are 
arrived at that point when new taxes either 
produce nothing, or defeat the old ones, 
and when new duties only operate as a 
prohibition ; yet these are the times, Sir, 
when every ignorant boy thinks himself fit 
to be a minister.2 Instead of attendance to 
objects of national importance, our v/orthy 
governors are contented to divide their time 
between private pleasures and ministerial 
intrigues. Their activity is just equal to 
the persecution of a prisoner in the King's 
Bench, 3 and to the honourable struggle of 
providing for their dependants. If there be 
a good man in the king's service, they dis- 
miss him of course ; and when bad news 
arrives, instead of uniting to consider of a 
remedy, their time is spent in accusing and 
reviling one another. Thus the debate 
concludes in some half misbegotten mea- 
sure, which is left to execute itself. Away 
they go : — one retires to his country-house ; 
another is engaged at a horse-race ; a third 
has an appointment with a prostitute ; — 
and as to their country, they leave her, like 
a cast off mistress, to perish under the dis- 
eases they have given her. 

ATTICUS. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 23 August, 1768. 

Amidst the general indignation 
which has been excited by the marked 
affront lately put upon sir Jeffery Amherst, 
it is odd to find people puzzling them.selves 
about the motives which have actuated ad- 
ministration in this extraordinary procedure. 

^ The duke of Grafton was first lord of the 
Treasury at this period. — Edit. 
3 Wilkes.— Edit. 



394 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Nothing is more short and easy than the 
solution of this affected difficulty. They 
were ordered to act in this manner. 

The public knows, and can ;know, no 
other reason. The ministry know, and de- 
sire to know, no other reason. They have 
not the slightest quarrel with sir Jeffery 
Amherst. They have not the most trivial 
regard for lord Boutetort. Some of them 
are known even to hate his Lordship ; the 
rest are scarcely acquainted with him ; but 
they have received the order, and that is 
enough for them. Their whole pohtical 
system is wrapped up in one short maxim — 
' My author SlwA disposer I what thou bid's t, 
Unargued I obey ! ' 
In this lesson they are perfect to a miracle ; 
and the signal proof they have just given of 
their daring and determined servihty, shows 
them altogether worthy of that confidence 
which the favourite so wisely reposed in 
them (during his pleasure), the depositaries 
of his intentions, and the trustees of his 
power. 

But although it be in vain to seek for any 
higher principle than blind obedience in 
the formal and executive members of the 
ministry, it is worth while to examine a 
little more minutely the motives which 
might actuate in this affair, the secret but 
deliberative a7id guiding part of adminis- 
tration. 

Can we believe from the monstrousness, 
or can we doubt from the notoriety, of the 
fact, that the political principles held by 
the present governor of Virginia, during 
the greatest part of his life, and avowed 
almost without a mask, could be his sole 
recommendation to that employment ? Can 
we believe that these principles constitute 
such a transcendent degree of merit, as 
makes it necessary to reward its possessor 
at the expense of the national honour, 
gratitude, and safety ? Such merit must be 
served in any way, and at any price. A 
peerage, which every one knows could not 
be had without the royal countenance, was 
not sufficient. It was too little that he was 
put into an honourable employment near 
the perso7i of his sovereign. After an un- 



successful attempt to reward him further 
by a violation of our laws in an illegal 
patent, he is now to be provided for by the 
ruin of our affairs in a critical and import- 
ant government. 

As a part of this system, and in order to 
give it a due roundness and relief, it was 
thought proper not only to affl-ont living 
merit, but to insult and trample upon the 
sacred ashes of the dead. It was not forgot 
under whose patronage sir Jeffery Amherst 
first appeared in the world. It was not 
forgot that he was one of the many public 
benefits derived to this country from that 
great school of military knowledge and 
loyal sentiments, the family of the late 
duke of Cumberland. Here was a glorious 
opportimity of cherishing a true friend to 
despotism, and at the same time of insult- 
ing the memory of him who had been the 
heavy scourge, and (it was once hoped) the 
final destroyer of that cause. This oppor- 
tunity was not lost. 

To return : I have said that the justly 
obnoxious principles at which I have 
hinted, constitute, or j-^^?;z at least to con- 
stitute, the sole merit of the new goveirnor. 
If the friends of the ministry can discover 
any other, they would be very kind to men- 
tion them. The public looks upon this 
transaction in a very serious light. Nothing 
but the strongest conviction that the very 
salvation of America depends upon the 
abilities of lord Boutetort, can reconcile 
them to the affront which has been put 
upon sir Jeffery Amherst. 

They derive no consolation from being 
told that this meritorious commander had 
received a previous intimation to repair to 
his government, with which he showed 
himself unwilling to comply. They are as 
dissatisfied as ever ; first, because the fact 
itself, standing upon no higher authority 
than ministerial assertion, will be disputed. 
Falsehood is a servile vice ; and to the im- 
putation of that vice people in a slavish 
condition, whether low or high (for servi- 
tude, as well as hell, has its ranks and dig- 
nities), will always be subject ; especially if 
ministers are known to have found the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



395 



dexterous art of splitting themselves, and 
possessing one character in which to pro- 
mise, and another in which to act.^ 

But with all the advantage of their sup- 
ple habits, and of their double characters, 
will they venture to assert, that the arrange- 
ment in favour of lord Boutetort was not 
determined upon before they had con- 
sulted sir Jeifery Amherst concerning a 
residence in Virginia? In the next place, 
did they not know that his residence in the 
character of governor in America, where he 
had before commanded in chief, was a thing 
incompatible with all the ideas entertained 
by military men concerning rank and pre- 
cedence ? And if so, was not the order for 
residence given (if it was given) that it 
might be disobeyed? Is it not an heavy 
aggravation, instead of the least excuse for 
their offence ? 

Lastly, the public would be glad to know 
how it comes that this grand ministerial 
reformation was taken up in this single 
instance ; it made no part of a general 
arrangement. If it were done in consider- 
ation of the colonies, let me ask, whether 
the people of Virginia have lately com- 
plained of the absence of their governor, 
under which they have acquiesced upwards 
of fifty years ? If it was done on the part of 
Great Britain, again let me enquire whether 
the lieutenant-governors, who have acted 
during those fifty years, have wanted 
authority, knowledge, or capacity ? If they 
did, in what manner is the defect supplied 
by the new appointment? Is the new 
governor invested with any larger powers 
than the late heutenant-governors ? Or is 
he endued with a greater degree of experi- 
ence, knowledge, or sagacity for the exer- 
cise of those pow-ers ? No, no ; the manner 
of filling the vacancy made by the removal 
of sir Jeffery Amherst sets in the broad 
glare of day-light the true reasons for 
making it ; it was not done to reform a 
public abuse, but to accommodate a private 
job ; it was not Virginia that wanted a 



^ See Miscellaneous Letter, No. XXI. 
Edit. 



governor, but a court favourite that wanted 
the salary. 

I cannot help observing in the ministerial 
writings v/ith which the papers have been 
lately filled, that much scurrilous abuse has 
been thrown out against the Whig party 
and Whig principles. Permit me to con- 
gratulate the ministers on this well-chosen 
topic : the defence is worthy of the cause. 
They tell us, that all party distinctions 
ought to be done away, and that men of all 
kinds ought to have an equal share in pub- 
he employment. This notion, taken with 
due corrections, has some sense, but in 
their application much absurdity. No man 
would prevent the public from being served 
by the abilities of any person, because he 
might have the misfortune in some time of 
his life to be mistaken in his political opin- 
ions or connexions. But every Whig 
thinks it fair, that persons under such cir- 
cumstances should be obliged to produce 
some other merit besides those mistakes ; 
and that they should give some other 
proofs of their conversion to the principles 
of our happy establishment, than their ne- 
cessity, or their desire of partaking in the 
emoluments which it has to bestow. 

This surely is the sentiment and lan- 
guage of candour and moderation. This 
ought to be the inviolable rule where the 
question is concerning offices of trust, and 
which require weight and ability for their 
execution. When the question is concern- 
ing the mere graces of the crown, the rule 
is, to become even more severe ; and every 
lover of the constitution must think it a 
crime hardly less than treason in those who 
shall advise a court to discountenance the 
families which have promoted the revolu- 
tion, and at the same time to load with its 
favours those who (reconciled by profit, not 
by opinion) have ever been the declared 
enemies both of the revolution, and of every 
benefit we derive from the happy event. 
You may hear again from 

Your humble servant, 

VALERIUS. 



396 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXV. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 

My Lord, 29 August, 1768. 

The honourable lead you have 
taken in the affairs of America, hath drawn 
upon you the whole attention of the public. 
You declared yourself the single minister 
for that country, and it was very proper you 
should convince the world you were so, by 
marking your outset with a coup d eclat. 
The dismission of sir Jeffery Amherst has 
given a perfect establishment to your 
authority, and I presume you will not 
think it necessary or useful to hazard 
strokes of this sort hereafter. It will be 
adviseable at least to wait until this affair 
is forgotten, and, if you continue in office 
till that happens, you will surely be long 
enough a minister to satisfy all your am- 
bition. 

The world attributes to your Lordship 
the entire honour of sir Jeffery Amherst's 
dismission, because there is no other person 
in the cabinet, who could be supposed to 
have a wish or motive to give such advice 
to the crown. The duke of Grafton and 
the chancellor were once lord Chatham's 
friends. However their views may now be 
altered, they must know it would disgrace 
them in the eyes of the pubhc, to offer an 
unprovoked outrage to a man whose con- 
duct and execution had contributed not a 
little to their patron's glory. 

The duke of Bedford and his friends 
have uniformly held forth sir Jeffery Am- 
herst as the first military man in this coun- 
try ; — they have quoted him on all occa- 
sions, when military knowledge was in 
question, and even been lavish in his praise. 
Besides, they openly disclaim any share in 
this measure, and they are believed. 

The earl of Shelburne usually finds him- 
self in opposition, therefore is not too often 
consulted. In this instance he certainly 
did not concur with the majority. He still 
is, or pretends to be, attached to lord Chat- 
ham, and I fancy he is not yet so cordially 
reconciled to the loss of the American de- 



partment, as to dishonour himself merely to 
oblige your Lordship. 

You will not venture to insinuate that sir 
Jeffery Amherst was dismissed by the ad- 
vice of lord Granby or sir Edward Hawke. 
Military men have a sense of honour which 
your Lordship has no notion of. They feel 
for a gallant officer who had his full share 
in the toils and honour, and had some right 
to a share, in the profits of the war. They 
feel for the army and the navy. Lord 
Granby himself has some emoluments be- 
sides his power, and sir Edward Hawke 
has his pension. Nobly earned I confess, 
but not better deserved than by the labours 
which conquered America in America. 
Besides, my Lord, the commander-in-chief 
is the patron of the army. It was a com- 
mon cause which he could not desert with- 
out infamy and reproach. Lord Granby is 
not a man to take his tone from any minis- 
ter. Where his honour is concerned, he 
scorns to adopt an humble ministerial lan- 
guage ; he never would say — that ifideed 
sh' Jeffery Amherst was rather unreasona- 
ble — that his terms were exorbitant, that he 
had still two regiments left ; and might 
well be co7itented. — This is a language it is 
impossible he should hold, while he himself 
is master-general of the ordnance, colonel 
of the blues, and commander-in-chief, with 
a whole family upon the staff. He knows 
the value, and could not but be sensible of 
the loss, of those honourable rewards which 
his distinguished capacity, his care of the 
public money, and his able conduct in 
Germany had justly entitled him to. 

I think I have now named all the cabinet 
but the earl of Chatham. 

His infirmities have forced him into a 
retirement, where I presume he is ready to 
suffer, with a sullen submission, every in- 
sult and disgrace that can be heaped upon 
a miserable, decrepit, worn out old man. 
But it is impossible he should be so far 
active in his own dishonour, as to advise 
the taking away an employment, given as 
a reward for the first military success that 
distinguished his entrance into administra- 
tion. He is indeed a compound of contra- 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



397 



dictions, but his letter to sir Jeffery Amherst 
stands upon record, and is not to be ex- 
plained away. You know, my Lord, that 
Mr Pitt therein assured sir Jeffery Amherst, 
that the government of Virginia was given 
him merely as a reward, and solemnly 
pledged the royal faith that his residence 
should never be required. Lost as he is, 
he would not dare to contradict this letter. 
If he did, it would be something more than 
madness. The disorder must have quitted 
his head, and fixed itself in his heart. 

The business is now reduced to a point ; 
either your Lordship advised this measure, 
or it happened by accident. You must suffer 
the whole reproach, for you are entitled to 
all the honour of it. What then is apparently 
the fact ? one of your cringing, bowing, 
fawning, sword-bearing brother courtiers ^ 
ruins himself by an enterprise, ^ which would 
have ruined thousands if it had succeeded. 
It becomes necessary to send him abroad. 
Sir Jeffery Amherst is one of the mildest 
and most moderate of men ;^— ergo, such a 
man will bear any thing. His government 
will be a handsome provision for Boutetort, 
and if he frets — why he may have a pension. 
Your emissaries lose their labour, when 
they talk with so much abhorrence of sine- 
cures, non-residence, and the necessity of 
the king's service. You are conscious, my 
Lord, that these are pompous words with- 
out a shadow of meaning. The whole 
nation is convinced that the fact is such as 
I have stated it. But to make it a Httle 
plainer, I shall ask your Lordship a few- 
questions, to which the public will expect, 
and your reputation, if you have any regard 
for it, demands, that you should give an 
immediate and strict answer. 

1. When the government of Virginia 
was offered to sir Jeffery Amherst, did he 
not reply, that his miUtary employments 
took up all his time, and that he could not 
accept the government if residence were 
expected ? 

2. Did not Mr Pitt, then secretary of 
state, assure him in the king's name, that 



^ Lord Boutetort. 
The W y Company. 



it was meant only as a mark of his Majesty's 
favour, and that his residence would never 
be expected ? 

3. Has there ever been any further mark 
of favour conferred upon this gentleman, 
for all those important services, which suc- 
ceeded the conquest of Cape Breton ? 

But now for questions of a later date. 

1. Was not lord Boutetort's appointment 
absolutely fixed, on or before Sunday the 
31st of July ? 

2. Had sir Jeffery Amherst the least inti- 
mation of the measure before Thursday the 
4th of August ? 

3. Was it not then mentioned to him in 
general terms, as a measure merely in con- 
templation, without the most distant hint 
that lord Boutetort, or any other person, 
was actually in possession of his govern- 
ment. 

4. Did not lord Boutetort kiss hands 
the next day, that is, on Friday the 5th of 
August ? 

5. Did you not dare to tell your sove- 
reign that sir Jeffery Amherst was perfectly 
satisfied, when you knew your treatment of 
him was such as the vilest peasant could 
not have submitted to without resentment ? 

Finally, my Lord, is it not a fact, that 
sir Jeffery Amherst, having been called 
upon some time ago to give his opinion 
upon a measure of the highest importance 
in America, gave it directly against a 
favourite scheme of your Lordship ; and is 
not this the real cause of all your antipathy 
to him ? Your heart tells you that it is. 

Now, my Lord, you have voluntarily 
embarked in a most odious, perhaps it may 
prove to you a most dangerous, business. 
Your Pylades will sneak away to his govern- 
ment ; but you must stand the brunt of it 
here. For the questions which I have pro- 
posed to you, I must tell you plainly, that 
they must and shall be answered. 

You may affect to take no notice of them, 
perhaps, and tell us you treat them luiik 
the cotitempt they deserve. Such an expe- 
dient may be wise and spirited enough 
when applied to a declaration of rebellion 
on the part of the colonies, and God 



398 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



knows it has succeeded admirably. But it 
shall not avail you here. 

Nuni negare audes 1 Quid taces ? Convincavi 
si negas. 

LUCIUS. 



LETTER XXXVI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 'if) August, xjSZ. 

I SHALL not pretend to enter into 
the merits of sir Jeffery Amherst's dismis- 
sion from his government of Virginia. 
Everybody knows he deserves a great deal 
of the public : and if what I have heard be 
true, even the present administration do not 
refuse it him. But there are a number of 
busy incendiaries, who use every means to 
poison the minds of the good people of 
England, and to abuse those in power, 
whoever they are. These neither inquire 
into the truth of the matter, nor do they 
fail to show the most disagreeable view of 
every action of the ministry. An impudent 
varlet, Y. Z., in this day's paper, talks of 
forty or fifty lives lost in St George's fields. 
When was it? Others have heaped toge- 
ther a parcel of ill-natured lies, and given 
it the name of an account of the dismission 
of sir Jeffery Amherst. 

The particulars of sir Jeffery Amherst's 
dismission, I am told, are as follow : for 
very urgent reasons it had been determined 
the governor-general of every province in 
America should reside. Upon which lord 
Hillsborough wrote a letter to sir Jeffery, 
acquainting him of this resolution. After 
making very honourable mention of his 
service in America, how much his country 
was obliged to him for that activity, steadi- 
ness, and courage, which so eminently dis- 
tinguished the commander, and which from 
his example diffused itself through the 
whole army, by which means the British 
arms were crowned with success, and the 
war so happily concluded in that part of 
the world ; he mentioned the very high 
opinion his Majesty had of him both as a 



man and as a soldier, and how much it 
would be to his satisfaction, was it suitable 
to sir Jeffery's inclinations and circum- 
stances, to go to Virginia and take upon 
him the supreme command in that pro- 
vince : but if it was not convenient^ he 
might depend on it, that his Majesty would 
take the earHest opportunity of doing jus- 
tice to his merits, by making him a recom- 
pence equivalent at least to the loss of his 
government. 

This letter was scarce finished when sir 
Jeffery Amherst called at lord Hillsbo- 
rough's on some other business. His 
Lordship took that opportunity to explain 
the intentions of administration by such a 
measure, gave him the letter, and sir Jef- 
fery seemed to be convinced of the necessity 
of the arrangement, acquiesced in the pro- 
posals made to him, and went away to all 
appearance well satisfied. 

If it was next day, or not, I know not, 
but sir Jeffery very soon after this demand- 
ed an audience of his Majesty, and resigned 
the command of his regiments. 

This not being accepted of, and the min- 
istry willing to keep such a man in the 
service, and not wishing to give cause for 
his resignation, endeavoured to reason with 
him ; upon which he (sir Jeffery Amherst) 
delivered or sent to the duke of Grafton 
the following articles of accommodation. 

1. A British peerage to himself, and 
faiUng heirs of his body, to descend to his 
brother the colonel. 

2. A recompence equivalent to the loss 
of his government. 

3. An exclusive right of working the coal 
mines at Louisburg to him and his heirs 
for ever. 

4. A grant of lands in America to a cer- 
tain extent. 

5. And in case it should be judged ex- 
pedient to create American peers, that he 
should have the pre-eminence. 

The duke of Grafton on receiving this, 
begged to see sir Jeffery. Who sent him 
word, if the interview was intended to in- 
duce him to lower his demands, it was 
totally unnecessary. His Grace then went 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



399 



to him, and gave him the following answers. 

1. British peerages were generally given 
to such, whose opulent fortunes enabled 
them to support that high dignity. This 
reason he apprehended sir Jeffery could 
not plead. 

2. It always had been his ^Majesty's in- 
tentions to make him a recompence equi- 
valent to his government. 

3. Reasons political and commercial for- 
bade the working of the American coal 
mines at all. 

4. He might have the grant of lands in 
America, when, where, and to what extent 
he pleased ; but he did not apprehend 
there was the least reason to make the fifth 
demand, as he supposed a creation of 
American peers would never take place. 

Sir Jeffery Amherst's regiments are not 
given away. 

I shall make no comment on this. I tell 
it as a fact, which I have heard from what 
people call good authority. The dismission 
of an experienced and deser\-ing commander 
requires seme attention ; and there can be 
no harm in making the public acquainted 
with it. The number of falsehoods that 
have been spread abroad about this trans- 
action have induced me to send you this. 

I must tell you, however, that my in- 
formation is second-hand ; but it may have 
this good effect, even if not true, to induce 
those who know the contrary to do as I 
have done. I shall therefore conclude with 
this question : are these things true or not ? 
CLEOPHAS. 



* This letter was at length published, Nov. 2, 
and is as follows. 

Sir, Hanover Square, 27 July, 1768. 

I AM commanded by the king to acquaint 
you, that his IMajesty, upon a consideration of 
the dispatches lately received from Virginia, 
thinks it necessary for his service, that his go- 
vernor of that colony should immediately repair 
to his government ; and at the same time, to ex- 
press to you the high opinion his IMajesty has 
of your ability to serve him in that situation. 
But it is not the king's intention to press you to 
go upon that service, imless it shall be perfectly 
agreeable to your inclination, as well as entirety 
convenient to you. His IMajesty does not forget, 
that the government of Virginia was conferred 
upon you as a mark of royal favour, and as a 



LETTER XXXVII. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 

My Lord, i September, 1768. 

In the ordinary course of life, a 
regularity of accounts, a precision in points 
of fact, and a punctual reference to dates, 
form a strong presumption of integrity. 
On the other hand, an apparent endeavour 
to perplex the order and simplicity of facts, 
to confound dates, and to wander from the 
main question, are shrewd signs of a rotten 
cause and of a guilty conscience. Let the 
public determine between your Lordship 
and me. You have forfeited all title to re- 
spect ; but I shall treat you with tenderness 
and mercy, as I would a criminal at the 
bar of justice. 

In your letter signed Cleophas, you are 
pleased to assume the character of a person 
half informed. We understand the use of 
this expedient. You avail yourself of every 
thing that can be said for you by a third 
person, without being obliged to abide by 
the apology, if it should fail you. My 
Lord, this is a paltry art, unworthy of your 
station, unworthy of every thing but the 
cause you have undertaken to defend. 
While you pursue these artifices it is im- 
possible to know on what principles you 
really rest your defence. But you may 
shift your ground as often as you please ; 
you shall gain no advantage by it. Your 
Lordship, under the character of Cleophas, 
is exactly acquainted with particulars, 
which could only be known to a few per- 
sons, w^iile you totally forget a series of 
facts known to thousands. You can repeat 
every article of your own letter to sir Jef- 
fery Amherst, 1 though your own memory 



reward for the very great services you have done 
for the public, so much to your own honour, and 
so much to the advantage of this kingdom, and 
therefore his Majesty is very solicitous that you 
should not mistake his gracious intention on this 
occasion. 

If you choose to go immediately to your go- 
vernment, it will be extremely satisfactory to his 
Majesty ; if you do not, his IMajesty wishes to 
appoint a new governor, and to continue to you 
in some other shape, that emolument which was, 



400 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



be too weak to recollect on what day lord 
Boutetort's appointment was fixed, on what 
day he kissed hands, and on what day the 
design was opened to sir Jeffery Amherst. 
These, it seems, are circumstances of no 
importance, and to say the truth, I believe 
they are such as you would willingly forget. 
I am glad to find, however, that the ac- 
knowledgment of sir Jeffery Amherst's 
merit and services could not be more full 
and formal than as it is stated in your letter 
to him. Upon that point then we are 
agreed. 

You say sir Jeffery Amherst, at your first 
conversation, seemed satisfied. My Lord, 
I must tell you, that when a secretary of 
state assures sir Jeffery Amherst that any 
particular measure is necessary for the king's 
service, he is too good a subject to set his 
private interest in opposition to the public 
welfare. But did you tell him that his 
government had been given away four days 
before? Did you not speak of it as a 
measure in fuhirinn, which was not to take 
place till he was perfectly satisfied ? In 
short, did you tell him that lord Boutetort 
was to kiss hands next morning ? Answer 
these questions like a man and a gentle- 
man. 

When sir Jeffery Amherst found that all 
this pretended necessity of the king's 
service ended in a provision for a ruined 
courtier, he felt the indignation of a man 

as I have said before, intended as a mark of the 
royal sense of your meritorious services ; it is a 
particular pleasure to me to have the honour of 
expressing to you these very favourable senti- 
ments of our royal master. To add any thing 
from myself, would be a degree of presumption ; 
I will therefore only request the favour of your 
answer, as soon as may be convenient, and take 
the liberty to assure you, that I am, 

HILLSBOROUGH. 
The following short note was published im- 
mediately in reply to it. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 
Sir, 5 Nove7nhe7-, 1768. 

To prevent any impression which may 
arise to the prejudice of sir Jeffery Amherst 
from a letter circulated by the earl of Hills- 
borough, and now in print, it is only necessary 
to observe that it is dated the 27th of July, and 



who has received an affront, not an injury. 
Your emissaries affect to say, that he was 
desired to repair to his government, and 
upon his refusal was dismissed. This you 
know was not the fact, so that every reason- 
ing built upon it falls to the ground. You 
never did nor could propose to him, to 
return to America in a rank subordinate to 
general Gage. It never was a question ; and 
indeed how should it, when his government 
was given away on the 31st of July, and he 
had not the most distant intimation that 
such a measure was thought of, until 
Thursday the 4th of August. Mark these 
dates, my Lord, for you shall not escape 
me. 

After the affront had been fixed upon 
him in the grossest manner, he was desired 
to consider what satisfaction he would 
accept of. He then sent to the duke of 
Grafton the demands, which you have 
stated to the pubhc. These, and the 
answers to them, shall now be considered. 
The word demand is peremptory, and unfit 
to be made use of by a subject in a request 
to the crown. It was not made use of by 
sir Jeffery Amherst, though, for the matter 
of it, I assert without scruple that a man 
of distinguished public merit, who has been 
signally insulted, is not in the case of a 
suppliant, but has a right to a signal re- 
paration. 

The duke of Grafton's idea of the proper 
object of a British peerage differs very 



that the government of Virginia was given to 
lord Boutetort on Sunday the 24th. This being 
the fact, the humble fawning language of the 
secretary of state's letter, instead of a compli- 
ment, is a real mockery and insult. A true idea 
of the treatment which sir J. A. has received, 
can only be had by observing the order of the 
facts. The government is given away on Sun- 
day. The secretary of state writes his letter on 
Wednesday. He and sir J. A. meet on Thurs- 
day. Not the most distant hint is given him 
that his government is actually disposed of, and 
lord Boutetort kissed hands next morning. This, 
Sir, is the treatment which sir J. A. considers as 
an affront, not an injury, and which he resents 
as he ought. If lord H. had not pubhshed his 
letter, I should not have thought of reviving a 
question on which the pubhc was before com- 
pletely satisfied. 

A. B.— Edit. 



[ 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



401 



materially from mine. His Grace, in the 
true spirit of business, looks for nothing 
but an opulent fortune, meaning, I presume, 
the fortune which can purchase as well as 
maintain a title. We understand his Grace, 
and know who dictated that article. He 
has declared the terms on which Jews, 
gamesters, pedlars, and contractors (if they 
have sense enough to take the hint) may rise 
without difficulty into British peers. There 
was a time indeed, though not within his 
Grace's memory, when titles were the 
reward of pubhc virtue, and when the 
crown did not think its revenue ill employed 
in contributing to support the honours it 
had bestowed. It is true his Grace.'s family 
derive their wealth and greatness from a 
different origin ;— from a system which it 
seems he is determined to revive. His con- 
fession is frank at least, and well becomes 
the candour of a young man. I dare say, 
that if either his Grace or your Lordship 
had had the command of a seven years' 
war in America, you would have taken care 
that poverty, however honourable, should 
not have been an objection to your advance- 
ment ; you would not have stood in the 

predicament of sir Jeffery Amherst, who is 
refused a title of honour, because he did 
not create a fortune equal to it at the ex- 
pense of the pubhc. 

For the matter of a recompence equiva- 
lent to his government, he repeatedly told 
your Lordship that the name of pension was 
grating to his ears ; and that he would 
accept of no revenue that was not at the 
same time honorary. Your Lordship does 
not know the difference, but men of honour 
feel it. 

If reasons political and commercial forbid 
working the coal-mines in America, ikaf, I 
allow, is an answer ad homi?iem. It may 
be a true one ; yet I do not despair of seeing 
these very mines hereafter granted to sup- 
port the chastity of a minister's whore, the 
mtegrity of a pimp, or the uncorru'pted 
blood of a bastard. 

His Grace is wonderfully bountiful in the 
article of lands : I doubt not he would with 
all his heart give sir Jeffeiy Amherst the 



fee-simple of every acre from the Mississippi 
to Cahfornia. But we shall be the less sur- 
prised at his generosity, when we consider 
that every private soldier, who served a 
certain time in America, was entitled to two 
hundred acres, and that not one man, out 
of perhaps twenty thousand claimants, has 
yet settled upon his estate. 

As to American peerages, if none are to 
be created, the request falls of course. But 
if such a creation had been intended, I call 
upon your Lordship to point out a man 
better entitled to precedence upon that list 
than sir Jeffery Amherst. 

Your last assertion is that his regiments 
are not given away. It is a matter of per- 
fect indifference. Yet the public has reason 
to believe that colonel Hotham is now 
colonel of the 15th regiment, and that the 
commission of commandant of the royal 
Americans only waits until it shall be deter- 
mined whether general Gage shall be re- 
called or not. 

Permit me now to refer your Lordship to 
the questions stated in my last letter, and 
to desire you to answer them strictly. If 
you do not, the public will draw its own 
conclusions. 

Your emissaries, my Lord, have rather 
more zeal than discretion. One of them, 
who calls himself A Considerate English- 
man, could not write by authority, because 
he is entirely unacquainted with facts. His 
declamation therefore signifies nothing. In 
his assertions however there is something 
really not unpleasant. He assures us that 
your Lordship's great abilities were brought 
into employment to correct the blunders of 
Mr Pitt's administration. It puts rne in 
mind of the consulship which Caligula 
intended for his horse, and of a project 
which Buckhorse once entertained of oblig- 
ing the learned world with a correct edition 
of the classics. 

LUCIUS. 



26 



402 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XXXVIIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 September, 1768. 

When a worthless administration 
do a notorious act of i7ijustice to a good 
man which naturally raises the indignation 
of the public, they are not satisfied with the 
first blow, but their emissaries go to work 
to blacken the character which was fair 
before, in order to justify the measures of 
their masters. 

In this light I must look upon the per- 
formance of your correspondent Cleophas, 
j'un. in your paper of to-day. 

His assertion, ' that the duke of Grafton 
assured sir Jeffery Amherst that general 
Gage should be recalled, if sir Jeffery chose 
to go to his government ' is an absolute 
falsity ; for (and I speak from vejy good 
authority) the matter of the chief command. 
of the troops never was mentioned, either 
by the duke of Grafton or any of his col- 
leagues. Had it been so lord Hillsborough 
in going his rounds (his Lordship imder- 
siaiids vie) Avould not have failed to have 
expatiated fully thereon ; but the letters of 
your masterly correspondent Ltccius have 
drove his Lordship to the mean and paltry 
art of employing some of his nameless de- 
penda7its to throw out insinuations, which 
he knows to h& false, yet, judging from the 
general run of mankind, flutters himself 
that at least part of them will be believed. 

My design being only to set the puplic 
right in regard to the assertion of sir Jeffery 
Amherst's being offered the chief command 
of the troops, which, in truth, never hap- 
pened, I shall take no notice of the other 
part of your correspondent's letter ; but 
leave him and his bungling patj-ojis to find 
in the list of the army an officer so fit as sir 
Jeffery Amherst to deal with the refractory 
colonists. 

L. L. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

For the Public Advertiser. 

7 Sept. 1768. 

Quid enivi est minus, nan dico oratoris, sed 
hofuinis, quatn id objicere adversaria, guod ille 
si verba iiegarit, langius progredi Jiaii possit 
qui objecerit ? Cicero. 

to the earl of hillsborough, 

My Lord, 

The bare assertion of a falsehood 
requires nothing more than a determined 
countenance. To maintain a consistent 
falsehood not only demands a genius of in- 
vention, but a faithful memory. In your 
Lordship's letter, signed Cleophas, jun., you 
are pleased to assert, that the duke of 
Grafton offered to recall general Gage in 
order that sir Jeffery Amherst might return 
to America with the chief command of the 
king's forces. Now, my Lord, I absolutely 
deny the fact, and as the public will not 
expect me to prove a negative, I shall leave 
it to your Lordship to produce your evi- 
dence, if you have any. 

Really, my good Lord, your letters upon 
business are drawn up with very little cau- 
tion. In one article you tell us that the 
chief command in America was offered to 
sir Jeffery Amherst, and, in the next, that 
he has been discovered for some time past 
to entertain a strong partiality for the re- 
fractory colonists. If both these facts were 
true, what an opinion must we conceive of 
a ministry careless and imprudent enough 
to intrust a man so biassed with such a 
command ! You see, my Lord, to what an 
unfortunate dilemma you have reduced 
yourself by a weak inconsistent defence. 
The rage of writing letters has brought 
many a wiser minister than your Lordship 
to an untimely end. 

You seem determined, my Lord, to go 
through the family of Cleophas. Be it so. 
If your pedigree extended from Denbigh 
to St David's, I would not cease to pursue 
you from father to son, until I had fairly 
extirpated the whole family. 

LUCIUS. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



403 



LETTER XL. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 7 September, 1768. 

As I have not the least intention 
to enter into any dispute with Lucius, in- 
dulge me but this once, and give me leave 
to assure you it shall be the last on the 
subject from me ; and though this man 
writes so ungenteelly, that he scarce de- 
serves an answer, yet I could not help 
thinking this much necessaiy in justice to a 
nobleman, whom he has m.ost shamefully 
attacked in consequence of my letter, but 
whose character is above the reach of 
malice, and who will be respected when 
such pests of society are no more. 

The account I sent you relative to the 
resignation of sir Jeffery Amherst I had 
heard publicly talked of at table, and in 
a coffee-house ; it was told as no secret ; 
but was said to be from very good authority. 
I sent it as a piece of intelligence without 
either adding or diminishing. I made no 
comment on it as I intended no offence. 
Facts were stated as they were told, and as 
no dates were mentioned, I gave none. I 
left it to the public to form opinions as they 
pleased ; to sir Jeffery Amherst's friends to 
contradict it, if they thought proper ; and 
it has served as a bone for curs of opposi- 
tion to snarl at. 

Though I do not mean to enter into any 
dispute with this fellow, yet I cannot help 
making a few observations on his letter. 
That the government of Virginia was given 
away four days before the intention of 
administration was mentioned to sir Jeffery j 
Amherst, I have good ground to beheve is 
not fact : and if }"oti, Lncius, possessed but 
one grain of honesty, and if you had no 1 
other intention but to communicate useful \ 
information to the public, you would have 
told them so : that it was applied for even 
as soon as it was whispered that such a 
measure was to be adopted, upon the sup- 
position that sir Jeffery Amherst would not 
choose to reside, I can believe : that it was 



promised to lord Boutetort in case he did 
not, I can hkewise believe ; and this might 
have been four, or even fourteen , days, for 
aught I know, before it was mentioned ; 
but pray where is the harm in all this ? I 
fancy no measure of government is entered 
into immediately on its being mentioned ; 
it requires some time to digest. And when 
it was judged expedient, in consequence of 
the accounts from that pro\'ince, to send 
the governor-general to reside in Virginia, 
it was mentioned in the tenderest mianner 
to sir Jeffery. No affront was ever intended. 
Any recoinpence (if he did not choose to 
go) in the power of administration, or in 
the gift of majesty, was offered him. What 
mxOre could he expect ? He had it in his 
option to go or not ; and if he did not go, 
he was promised an equivalent, perhaps 
more. As soon as this measure was sur- 
mised, was there any harm in lord Boute- 
tort's application ? Was there any fault in 
lord Hillsborough's promising his interest 
for his friend ? But is this an absolute 
appointment? No. All the world knovi's 
applications are made long enough before 
vacancies happen, and preferments are 
promised ; but everybody, except Lucius, 
can make a distinction between a promise 
and an absolute appointment. I dare say 
there were appUcations from more than one 
quarter before the late archbishop died ; 
and probably it was promised before the 
event happened ; but if the see had not be- 
come vacant, the present archbishop might 
have remained at Coventry. 

But speak out, malevolence, speak, envy, 
disappointment, and ill-nature. What in 
the name of goodness could be sir Jeffeiy 
Amherst's objection to lord Boutetort? 
Was it because he is a nobleman ? Be- 
cause he has gone to the chapel at St 
James's, and has carried the sword of state 
before his king? Because he never has in- 
sulted majesty, but has always behaved 
himself as a dutiful and loyal subject, and 
respectfully to his sovereign? Are these 
the weighty motives for objecting to his 
succession? Or is it still a greater crime 
to be poor? And do these make it an 



404 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



affront, not an injury f Forbid it, heaven ! 
Forbid it, sir Jeffery Amherst's better ge- 
nius ! What would you have had, Lticiiis f 
Would you have wished to have had the 
naming of sir Jeffery's successor ? What a 
pity yoii had not ! I declare you deserved 
it ! How could my lord Hillsborough dare 
to recommend without your permission ! 

Demands, you say, are unfit to be used 
from subjects requesting of the crown. 
Indeed, Lucius, you are right ; but many 
subjects now-a-days forget that they are so ! 
and call them by what name you please, I 
acknowledge these articles of accommoda- 
tion sent to the duke of Grafton by sir Jef- 
fery Amherst, or said to be sent, answer 
exactly to the ideas I have of demands, and 
pretty peremptory ones too. 

It is strange, Lucius, that you cannot 
write one line without abuse. Had you 
made your remarks upon the duke of Graf- 
ton's answer to the first article without 
abusing his Grace, it would have been 
genteel ; but the scurrilous language you 
use, even when your arguments are just, 
proves that you are equally unacquainted 
with the gentleman, and sense of honour. 
I believe it is well known that no com- 
mander-in-chief ever made less during a 
long war than sir Jeffery Amherst did : and 
I am very sorry indeed that want of for- 
tune, the consequence of honesty and in- 
tegrity, should ever be assigned as a reason 
to refuse honours to those who deser\'e 
them. The honours of this countiy, and 
its treasures to support them, have often 
been lavished on many who deserved them 
less than the conqueror of America. This 
I think was the only exceptionable answer 
from the duke of Grafton. I hope it is not 
true. 

Whatever delicate feehngs you, Mr Lti- 
cius, may have, I know not ; but I am of 
opinion that sinecure places, non-resident 
governments, and pensions, ai-e in fact the 
same, though different in names : nay, the 
worst of the whole appears to me to be a 
non-resident governor. The very word im- 
plies a necessity of doing son-icthing ; in 
fact he does nothing : he therefore is paid 



for what he does not, though it is his duty 
to do it. In short he is paid for a neglect 
of duty ; but because our language has not 
annexed the word pension to such neglect, 
it does not grate his ears. And, after all, 
what was sir Jeffery Amherst but a pen- 
sioner of the colony of Virginia? he did 
nothing for it, and was paid. Our idea of 
a pension is a reward granted for past 
services, so was his — such as you, Lticius, 
such tools of opposition, such state incen- 
diaries, venal mercenary wretches, are glad 
to receive rewards of your labours infinitely 
less honourable than either place or pension. 

The duke of Grafton's other answers 
were unexceptionable. As to the regiments 
being given away, I did not know it, there- 
fore I am excusable. 

And now, Mr Lucius, I'll tell you a 
secret. Your supposing my letter to come 
from my lord Hillsborough, in my opinion 
did credit to the performance, and honour 
to me ; but in justice to him I must declare, 
that I am not, know not, never saw, nor 
never spoke to the earl of Hillsborough in 
my hfe — but just as formerly, I am, &c., 
CLEOPHAS, 



LETTER XLI. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 

My Lord, 9 September, 1768. 

It is indifferent to the public, whe- 
ther the letters signed Cleoplias are written 
by your Lordship, or under your imme- 
diate direction. Whoever commits this 
humble, begging language to paper, we 
know to a certainty the person by whom it 
is held. We know the suppliant style your 
Lordship has condescended to adopt at 
routs, at tea-tables, and in bankers' shops. 
But although you have changed your tone, 
I am bound in honour not to give you 
quarter. You have offended heinously 
against your country, and public justice 
demands an example for the welfare of 
mankind. 

I foresaw Cleophas would soon be dis- 
avowed. It seems the poor gentleman 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



405 



never saw, nor spoke to your Lordship in 
his hfe, hut just as fortnerly. The saving 
is a good one. 

You say your character is above the 
reach of mahce. True, my Lord, you have 
fixed that reproach upon your character 
to which mahce can add nothing. You 
say it will be respected when such pests of 
society as I am are no more. I agree with 
you that it is very little respected at present, 
and I believe I may unluckily have been 
the spoil of good company ; but I doubt 
whether 7H}' death, or even your own, will 
restore you to your good fame. Your 
peace of mind is gone for ever. 

After the particulars quoted by Cleophas, 
it looks like trifling with the public, to con- 
fess that his accounts were collected in a 
coffee-house, and that he will neither an- 
swer for facts nor be directed by dates. 
These are evasions which I scorn to imitate. 
My authority is indisputable ; — I have stated 
facts with precision, and marked the dates 
by which I shall invariably abide, yet 
Cleophas (alias your Lordship) says he has 
good ground to believe that the government 
was not given away four days before sir 
J. A. was apprised of it ; — he believes indeed 
that it was previously applied for, and that 
lord Boutetort had a conditional promise 
of it. These, it seems, are the articles of 
his creed ; but, as they are not points of 
religious faith, to which there might be 
some merit in sacrificing our understand- 
ing, I presume the public is not obliged to 
conform to them. Aly questions were put 
strictly to points of fact and time, and have 
not yet been answered. Places, I doubt 
not, are often applied for and promised be- 
fore they are vacant ; but I did not expect 
to hear so indecent a case supposed and 
luged by a man in your Lordship's station, 
as that the see of Canterbury was promised 
to another, before the death of the late 
pious and truly reverend incumbent. 

You say that government was ready to 
make sir J. A. any recorapence : yet, ex- 
cepting a grant of lands in a wilderness, 
every one of his requests was flatly denied. 

You ask if there was any harm in this, or 



any fault in that. What is this but crying 
peccavi, in the very language of misery and 
despair? It neither suits the spirit which 
can do wrong with firmness, nor that purity 
of innocence which is conscious of having 
done right. If the necessity of sending 
over a governor to Virginia had really ex- 
isted, and if your Lordship had thought 
proper to take an early opportunity of 
stating that necessity to sir J. A.^if you 
had previously apprised him of the design 
of giving him a successor, and if, in con- 
formity to such declarations, a man of 
business, of judgment, or activity, had been 
fixed on, you surely could not have paid 
too great an attention to sir J. A., and you 
would have prevented every possible ap- 
pearance of an intention to affront him. 
As to the pecuniary injury, I will venture 
to say, there is not a man breathing who 
would have been more easily satisfied in 
that respect than sir J. A. — Compare this 
supposition with your real proceedings to- 
wards him, and though you cannot blush, 
I am sure you will be silent. 

Your questions in favour of lord Boute- 
tort amount to nothing. It is not that he 
is a bad man, or an undutiful subject. But 
he is a trifling character and ruined in his 
fortunes. Poverty of itself is certainly not 
a crime. Yet the prodigality which squan- 
ders a fair estate, is in the first instance 
dishonourable ; — in the next it leads to 
every species of meanness and dependence, 
and, when it aims at a recovery at the ex- 
pense of better men, becomes highly crim- 
inal. Will your Lordship, can you, with a 
steady countenance, affirm that it was the 
necessities of the state, and not his own, 
which sent him to Virginia ? 

Your Lordship may give what name you 
think proper to the requests proposed by 
sir J. A. He was desired to specify them 
to the duke of Grafton, and they were re- 
fused. It is true, he did not confine him- 
self to the idea of a bare equivalent for the 
pecuniary value of his government. A 
generous mind, offended by an insult 
equally signal and unprovoked, looks back 
to services long neglected, and with justice 



4o6 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



unites the claim arising from those services 
to the insult, which of right demands a 
signal reparation. 

As you seem, in the duke of Grafton's 
answer to the first article, to feel and ac- 
knowledge your weakness, I shall not press 
you further upon it. 

The pensions given by the crown have 
been so scandalously prostituted, that a 
man of any nicety might well be forgiven, 
if he wished not to have the tide of pen- 
sioner added to his name. But I shall not 
descend to a dispute about words. I speak 
to things. If, instead of the government 
of Virginia, his late Majesty, on the surren- 
der of Louisburgh, had thought proper to 
give sir J. A. a pension, and if this had 
been the declared motive of giving it, he 
might have accepted it without scruple, 
and held it with honour. Instances of 
pensions so bestowed are not very frequent. 
Sir Edward Hawke's is one. How widely 
different is the case in question ! I will not 
pretend to do justice to this good man's 
delicacy and sense of honour ; but I can 
easily conceive how a man of common 
spirit must be affected, when a place which 
he possessed on the most honourable terms, 
is taken from him, without even the de- 
cency due to a gentleman ; when he 

sees it given to a needy court dependant, 
and when the only reparation offered him, 
is to enroll him in a list of pensioners, 
among whom an honest man would blush 
to see his name. If you bad not been in 
such haste to correct the blunders of Mr 
Pitt's administration, I think your insignifi- 
cant friend might have appeared in that list 
without any disgrace to himself, and his 
distresses might have done credit to the 
humanity of your Lordship's recommend- 
ation. 

You did not know that the 15th regiment 
was given to Colonel Hotham. — Yet your 
assertion was direct. For shame, my Lord, 
have done with these evasions. Poor 
Pownali hangs his head m perfect modesty, 
and even yo\yc fidzis Achates, your unfor- 
tunate Barrington, disowns you. 



I shall conclude with hinting to you (in a 
way which you alone will understand) that 
there is a part of my behaviour to you, for 
which you owe me some acknowledgment. 
I know the ostensible defence you have 
given to the public differs widely from the 
real one intrusted privately to your friends. 
You are sensible that the most distant in- 
sinuation of what that defence is would 
ruin you at once. But I am a man of 
honour, and will neither take advantage of 
your imprudence, nor of the difficulty of 
your situation. 

LUCIUS. 



LETTER XLII. 



^ Secretary to the Board of Trade.— Edit. 



Plerisque maris est, prolato rerum ordine, in 
aliquem Icetum atque plausibilem loctcm qiiam 
inaxitne possint favor abiliter excurrere. 

QUINTILIAN. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 

My Lord, 10 September, 1768. 

Your change of title makes no 
alteration in the merits of your cause. You 
argued as well, and were full as honest a 
man, under the character of Clcophas, as 
you are under that of Scrutator. The task 
of pursuing falsehood through a labyrinth 
of nonsense is, I confess, much heavier than 
I expected. You have a way with you, my 
Lord, which blunts the edge of attention, 
and sets all argument at defiance. But I 
hold myself engaged to the public, whose 
cause is united with that of sir Jeffery Am- 
herst. The people of this country feel as 
they ought to do your treatment of a man 
who has served them well ; and the time 
may come, my Lord, when you in your 
turn may feel the effects of their resent- 
ment. 

You set out with asserting, that the 
crown has an indisputable power of dismiss- 
ing its officers without assigning a cause. 
—Not quite indisputable, my Lord ; — for I 
have heard of addresses from parliament, 
to know who advised the dismission of par- 
ticular officers. I have heard of impeach- 
ments attending a wanton exertion of the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



407 



prerogative, and you perhaps may live to 
bear of them hkewise. 

Another assertion of tlie same sort has 
been thrown out by your emissaries, and is 
now gravely maintained by your Lordship, 
— viz. that the promise conveyed to sir J. 
A. by Mr Pitt was in itself an absurdity, 
and that no succeeding minister is bound 
to make good an engagement entered into 
by his predecessor in ofiEice.i I shall leave 
my Lord Privy Seal to explain to you the 
motives on which Mr Pitt acted.2 The 
i promise arose from his own motion, and if 
he has not spirit enough to maintain it, he 
deseiwes the contempt Avith which you treat 
him. In the mean time, I shall presume 
that a lieutenant-governor was then thought 
as efficient an officer as a governor, and 
that this post was bestowed on sir J. A. 
not as the salary of future duties, but as the 
reward of services already performed. In the 
second part of your assertion, you wilfully 
confound the general measures of govern- 
ment with the particular promise of a king 
made to an individual. Even ministers, my 
Lord, might, without any injury to their 
characters, preserve the faith and integrity 
of their office. But whatever latitude they 
may claim for themselves, the honour of a 
king ought to be sacred, even to his success- 
or. The proposition that ministers are not 
bound by the engagements of their prede- 



^ The reference is to the letter signed Scruta- 
tor, in which the writer observes as follows in 
respect to the subject in question : — ' An absurd 
promise is asserted to have been made to sir 
Jeffer}^ Amherst at the time of his appointment 
to the government of Virginia, that his attend- 
ance on his government should 7iever be re- 
qiiired ; and a torrent of obloquy has been 
poured upon lord Hillsborough for not keeping 
a promise, which it is not even insinuated that 
his Lordship ever made. I can scarce think that 
any man could have been so infatuated as, at 
any time, to make such a preposterous promise, 
— a promise in itself void by a settled maxim of 
law, as repugnant to the grant. — But if any man 
could be so infantinely weak, it is his business 
alone to answer for the breach.' — Edit. 

^ ]\Ir Pitt was at this time lord privy seal with 
the title of lord Chatham.— Edit. 

3 Sc7-ntator concludes his letter in the follow- 
ing words : — • 

' Our vigilant minister is vehemently exclaimed 
against, because he showed himself prepared on 



cessors, if taken generally, is false. There 
is no breach of public faith which may not 
be justified on such a principle. Treaties 
at this rate may be violated \\'ithout national 
dishonour, and the most solemn assertions 
from the throne contradicted without re- 
serve. You forget that you are mixing the 
permanent dignity of the crown with the 
fluctuating interests and views of its serv- 
ants. Yet I shall now allow you more, my 
lyord, than I believe you expect. I shall 
admit, without hesitation, that the promise 
made to sir J. A. could not be so absolute, 
as not to be revocable in a case of urgent 
necessity. If such a case had been stated, 
and demonstrated to sir J. A., he would not 
have staid to be solicited. He would either 
have gone himself, or cheerfully resigned 
his government to his Majesty's disposal. 
The question turns then upon the .degree 
of that necessity. Make it evident to the 
pubKc, and I shall then only complain that 
you have done a right thing in a manner 
the most indecent and absurd. You will 
remember, my Lord, how much the issue 
of this question depends upon lord Boute- 
tort's character, for the public will not 
easily be persuaded, that a conjuncture 
which did not rise beyond the level of lord 
Boutetort's abilities, could be difficult, 
urgent, or important. ^ 



the instant, to supply the vacant place of the 
recreant knight. According to the ideas of the 
politicians of the hoft ton, v/ho always substitute 
personal to national considerations, there ought 
to have been a decent interval allowed either for 
the gentleman to repent, or for us, like fashion- 
able widows, to mourn, before a successor were 
appointed in his room — though in that interval 
the colony should be lost. — I honour lord Hills- 
borough for having his man ready, ready not 
only for his place, but for the province ; ready 
not only to kiss hands, but to take his passage. 
And from the watchful activity his Lordship has 
exerted in every known instance in his arduous 
employment, I have not the least doubt but that 
if lord Boutetort had either refused to go, or on 
any pretext delayed his departure, lord Hills- 
borough- had still some third man in his eye, who 
would have made ample amends for the de- 
ficiencies of both. 

' I wish this may prove a lesson to all future 
ministers of state, to keep a tight rein upon all 
ofiicers in their departments, lest anyone should 
cry out and affect to be surprised, when suddenly 
called upon, to do his duty, as he prizes his 
salary.' — Edit. 



4o8 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



You say the facts on which you reason 
are vniversally admitted — a gratis dictum 
which I flatly deny. If, instead of wander- 
ing into wild declamation, you had found 
it convenient to answer my questions 
strictly, we should have joined issue upon 
our facts, and the point would long since 
have been determined. Permit me to re- 
fresh your memory with some of them once 
more. 

1. Was not lord Boutetort absolutely 
appointed on the 31st of July? 

2. Was it mentioned in any shape to sir 
Jeflery Amherst before the 4th of August ? 

3. Was it not then mentioned as a mea- 
sure in contemplation only ? 

4. Did not lord Boutetort kiss hands 
next morning, that is, Friday the 5th in- 
stant ? 

5. Did not sir Jeffery Amherst's opinion 
in council defeat an American scheme 
formed by you and lord Barrington, and is 



^ There were several replies to this letter. 
One by an Independent Coti7itry Gentleina7i 
just arrived in town, and dated from the Bell 
Ifm, and another, signed Chrono}ihoto7ithologos, 
seem to have obtained some attention from the 
public, and the latter especially, in consequence 
of the writer's having discovered that Ljiciics 
had made a mistake, not in the facts of the 
transaction, but in one of the dates, by asserting 
that sir Jeffery Amherst came to town on Thurs- 
day, August 4th, instead of one week earlier, 
Thursday, July 28. Both these letters were re- 
plied to with much spirit by the following, signed 
Corrector. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 14 Septei7iher, 1768. 

I AM not surprised to find the tools of 
power alarmed at the sensible, pointed, and 
■masterly letters of your correspondent Ljicius ; 
but the Httle arts they have as yet used to baffle 
his arguments, have only served to expose their 
own weakness. I hope the gentleman at the Bell 
hin took the opportunity of a dry day to get to 
town for further information ; for in good truth, if 
he is still siorin-staid by the -rainy iveather, he 
had much better smoke a pipe with Boniface 
his landlord, than trouble the public with nods, 
for such I call his answers to the queries of 
Liiri::s. 

My troubling you at present is not to answer 
such a driveller ; but on reading this morning 
the letter in your paper, signed with the lo7ig 
iia77ie, I found that, at last, Mr Lncins was 
catched. Your correspondent however deals 
very tenderly with him, being sensible, I sup- 



not this the true cause of your rancour 
against him ? 

It is unworthy of the character of a gen- 
tleman to endeavour to amuse the public 
with idle declamations, while such questions 
as these remain unanswered. 

LUCIUS.i 



LETTER XLIII. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 

My Lord, 15 September, 1768. 

There is no surer sign of a weak 
head than a settled depravity of heart. A 
base action is a disorder of the mind, and 
next to the folly of doing it, is the folly 
which defends it. Had the letter signed 
Lucius never been answered, you would not 
have so shamefully betrayed the weakness 
of your cause, and your silence might have 
been interpreted into a consciousness of 



pose, of the ticklishness of the ground. As an 
admirer of the spirit of Lticius, and being 
thoroughly acquainted with the times and cir- 
cumstances in dispute, allow me to give the true 
edition, by which it will appear that Mr Chro- 
7io7iJioto7it/iologos does not mend the matter by 
his wonderful discovery. 

Luteins begins on Thursday, the 4th of August, 
whereas in truth it was on Thursday, the 28th of 
July, that sir Jefifery Amherst came to town, and 
finding that lord Hillsborough had been at his 
house, he immediately waited on his Lordship, 
when he had t\\Q frst intimation of his affair, 
lord Hillsborough's letter having been sent to sir 
Jeffery's house in the country. The very next 
day, viz. Friday, the 29th, lord Boutetort kissed 
hands on his appointment to that government, 
which the day before had been offered to sir 
Jeffery ; and on the 30th sir Jeffery sent the 
reqtiests in writing to the duke of Grafton which 
have been by the ministerial hirelings termed 
de7na7ids, and which have not been fairly repre- 
sented. Sir Jeffery did not fix on the coal 77ii7ies 
as the only gra7it, but left it to ad77ii7iistratioti 
to give that, or any other which might be more 
convenient, to enable him to support the dignity 
he requested ; nor did he ask for a separate grant 
of lands as has been asserted. That sir Jeffery 
Amherst speaks of lord Hillsborough in terms 
like a gentleman I can easily believe, as he is not 
capable of acting otherwise to a nobleman who 
has the honour of being one of his Majesty's 
servants ; but that he was pleased at the treat- 
ment he received, I absolutely deny, as it must 
be evident to the world, from what followed the 
appointment of lord Boutetort, that he thought 
\i\ms^\i grossly affronted. Corrector. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



409 



innocence. The question is now exhausted, 
for the public is convinced. How well or 
ill we have argued is of infinitely less im- 
portance than the integrity of facts. Yet 
even facts, though separately true, will 
prove nothing, if the order in which they 
happened be confounded. Take it finally, 
my Lord, and disprove it if you can. Lord 
Boutetort's appointment was fixed on or 
before Sunday. You called at sir Jeffery 
Amherst's on the Wednesday following. 
He was not in town, but you saw him next 
day (Thursday). You then told him that 
such a measure was in contemplation ; but 
far from naming his successor, you did not 
tell him that his successor was appointed. 
Yet lord Boutetort kissed hands the next 
morning (Friday), and the first notice sir 
Jeffery Amherst received of his Lordship's 
appointment, was by an express sent to 
him that evening by his brother. 

That you are a civil, polite person is true. 
Few men understand the little morals 
better, or observe the great ones less, than 
your Lordship. You can bow and smile in 
an honest man's face, while you pick his 
pocket. These are the virtues of a court in 
which your education has not been neg- 
lected. In any other school you might 
have learned that simphcity and integrity 
are worth them all. Sir Jeffery Amherst 
was fighting the battles of this country, 
while you, my Lord, the darhng child of 
prudence and urbanity, were practising the 
generous arts of a courtier, and securing an 
honourable interest in the antechamber of a 
favourite. 

As a man of abihties for public business, 
your first experiment has been unfortunate. 
Your circular letter to the American go- 
vernors, both for matter and composition, 
is a performance which a school-boy ought 
to blush for. The importance and diffi- 
culty of the occasion gave you a fair oppor- 
tunity of showing by what talents you were 
qualified for the station of a minister. The 
assembly of Massachusets' Bay, not con- 
tented with their own efforts to throw off 
their allegiance, solicit the other colonies to 
unite with them in measures of the same 



tendency and spirit. A resolution of this 
extraordinary nature demanded the whole 
attention of government, and yours in par- 
ticular. Let us see how you have treated 
it. Instead of a clear precise instruction to 
each governor ; — instead of separate in- 
structions adapted to the temper, circum- 
stances, and interests of the several pro- 
vinces, wherein you might have shown your 
political abilities as well as your knowledge 
of that country, what have you done ? In a 
circular letter of twenty or thirty lines (con- 
ceived in the same terms to all the govern- 
ors) you tell them, 

' That this measure is of a dangerous and 
factious tendency." A 7nost wonderful dis- 
covery. 

' That it is calculated to inflame the 
minds of his Majesty's subjects." What 
else do yoti think was meant by it f 

'An unwarrantable combination." Thai's 
the question with THEM, and tuhy did you 
7iot prove it so f 

' That it excites an opposition to parlia- 
ment." What other design in the name of 
folly could be proposed by it f 

' That it subverts the true principles of 
the constitution." Which they titterly deny. 

What are these but the loose hackneyed 
terms of office, which make no impression 
because they convey no argument and 
hardly a determinate meaning. You have 
not suggested a single motive to any one of 
the colonies, why they should not unite 
with the assembly of Boston. This task 
you leave to the governors, and if they find 
it an easy one, so much the better. Your 
conclusion however is a masterpiece. You 
desire the governors to prevail with their 
assemblies to talve no notice of the requisi- 
tion from Boston, which will be treating it 
with the conteinpt it deserves. What, my 
Lord, do you seriously think, that a formal 
attempt to unite the whole continent of 
America in rebellion against this country 
deserves nothing but the silent indifference 
of contempt? Is this the language of busi- 
ness or attention? Your letter, my Lord, 
does indeed deserve contempt, but the 
enterprises of the colonies are of other im- 



4IO 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



portance. They call for other measures 
and other ministers, and be assured that, 
when parliament meets, unless you intend 
to govern without one, neither you nor 
your companions will be permitted to ruin 
this country with impunity. 

LUCIUS. 

P. S. A friend of mine has taken the 
pains to collect a number of the epithets 
with which lord Hillsborough has been 
pleased to honour me in the course of our 
correspondence. I shall lay them before 
the public in one view, as a specimen of his 
Lordship's urbanity and singular conde- 
scension. 

1. Wretched scribbler. 

2. Worthless fellow. 

3 . Vile incendiary. 

4. False liar, in opposition to a true one. 

5. Snarler. 

6. Contemptible thing. 

7. Abandoned tool of opposition, and 
diabolical miscreant. 

8. Impudent scurrilous wretch. 

9. Rascal and scoundrel, passim. 

10. Barking cur ; by way of distinction 
from 

11. Barking animal ; cum mnliis aliis. 
To all which I shall only say, that his 

Lordship's arguments are upon a level with 
his poHteness. 

P. S. I acknowledge a mistake the 
moment I perceive it. I have advanced the 
transaction between lord Hillsborough and 
sir Jeffery Amherst too forward by one 
complete week. But the days of the week, 
the facts, and the order in which they suc- 
ceeded one another, are the same. You 
see plainly that my arguments are not 
affected by this mistake. If they had, I 
should have acknowledged it without hesi- 
tation. 



LETTER XLIV. 

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. 
My Lord, 20 September, 1768. 

Permit me to have the honour of 
introducing you to a very amiable and 



valuable acquaintance. Mr Ford is the 
gentleman I mean. Your Lordship will 
forgive the timidity and bashfulness of his 
first address, and, considering your quality, 
condescend to make him some advances. 
There is a similarity in your circumstances, 
to say nothing of your virtues and under- 
standing, which may lay the foundation of 
a solid friendship between you for the rest 
of your lives. Undoubtedly you are not 
quite unacquainted with a character, on 
which you appear to have formed your 
own. His case was singular, my Lord, and 
cannot fail of exciting some emotions of 
sympathy in your Lordship's breast. This 
v/orthy man found himself exposed to a most 
malicious prosecution for perjury. A profli- 
gate jury found him guilty, and a cruel judge 
pronounced his sentence of imprisonment, 
pillory, and transportation. His mind was 
a good deal distressed in the course of this 
affair (for he too is a man of delicate feel- 
ings), but his character, like yours, was 
above the reach of malice. Not to keep 
your Lordship any longer in pain, I have 
the pleasure of telling you that, when law 
and justice had done their worst, a lady, in 
whom he seldom places any confidence at 
cards, was generous enough to stand his 
friend. Fortune discovered a flaw in the 
indictment ; and now, my Lord, in spite of 
an iniquitous prosecution, in spite of con- 
viction and sentence, he stands as fair in 
his reputation as ever he did. Your Lord- 
ship will naturally be struck with the re- 
semblance between your case and his. 
Facts were so particularly stated against 
you that they colild not be denied ; — the 
order in which they happened was demon- 
strated, and sentence was pronounced by 
the public. The aflair was over, when up 
gets Tommy Ford, and discovers that the 
whole transaction passed in the last week of 
July instead of the first in August. This 
mistake, as it brought the object nearer to 
us, I called advancing. In your Lordship's 
country I presume it may properly be called 
a retreat. Here, however, the comparison 
ends. Your friend escaped by a form of 
law. But you, my Lord, have been tried at 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



411 



a tribunal of honour and equity. The pub- 
lic who are your judges, will not suffer my 
mistake (however it may prove the badness 
of my heart to acknowledge it) to quash the 
indictment against you. You are convicted 
of having done a base and foohsh action, in 
a manner the most despicable and absurd. 
Your punishment attends you in the con- 
tempt and detestation of mankind. 

Your Lordship has been pleased to pub- 
lish a long letter in the Gazetteer, to prove 
that all sir Jeffery Amherst's military serv- 
ices are a mere fiction. You did not sign 
it indeed, because you had lately signed 
another, containing the most express and 
authentic acknowledgment of those services, 
in a style of applause not very distant from 
flattery. You will not now, it seems, allow 
him any share in the reduction of Louis- 
burgh, or the conquest of Canada. Per- 
haps, after all, he never was in America. I 
am not a soldier, my Lord, nor will I pre- 
tend to determine what share of honour a 
general is entitled to for success, who must 
have borne the whole blame and disgrace, 
if he had failed. Had the event been un- 
favourable, his officers, I dare say, would 
have been willing enough to yield their 
concern in it to their commander-in-chief. 
As to the rest, I have heard from military 
men, that the judgment and capacity, 
which make resistance useless or impracti- 
cable, are rated much higher than even the 
resolution which overcomes it. When you, 
my Lord, and Mr I'^oixi are forgotten, this 
country will remember with gratitude, that 
sir Jeffery Amherst had the honour of 
making sixteen French battalions prisoners 
of war — that he carried on the whole war 
in America at an expense less than the 
fortunes, which some individuals had ac- 
quired by contracts and management in 
Germany ; — and that he did not put the 
savings into his own pocket. 

If a British peerage be too high a reward 
for these services, at least do him justice. 
Do not assure the public that he was not 
contented with a revenue of four thousand 
pounds a year, when you know that the 
income of his government and two regi- 



ments did not exceed two thousand three 
hundred, and that, until he was positively 
outraged, he never complained. As I pro- 
fess dealing in facts, take the account. 
Government of Virginia 1500 

Fifteenth regiment 600 

Commandant of the 60th 200 

2300 
As to a peerage, you would have done 
well to consider upon what sort of people 
this honour has been conferred for ten years 
past. Among the rest, we should be glad 
to know what were your Lordship's services 
or merits, when you were created Baron of 
Harwich. I take for granted that they 
were of a different complexion from those 
of sir J. A., since they have been so differ- 
ently rewarded. 

Here I shall conclude. You have sent 
sir Jeffery Amherst to the plough. You 
have left him poor in every article of which 
a false fawning minister could deprive him ; 
— but you have left him rich in the esteem, 
the love and veneration of his country. You 
cannot now recall him by any offer of wealth 
or honours. Yet I foretell that a time will 
come, when you yourself will be the cause 
of his return. Proceed, my Lord, as you 
have begun, and you will soon reduce this 
country to an extremity, in which the wisest 
and best subjects 7mist be called upon, and 
mtisi be employed. Till then enjoy your 
triumph. 

LUCIUS. 



LETTER XLV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 October, 1768. 

Since my last letter was printed, 1 
a question has been stated in the news- 
papers, which I think it incum.be nt upon 
me, as an honest man, to answer. Admit- 
ting my representation of the melancholy 
state of this country, and of public credit, 



^ Miscellaneous Letter, No. XXXIII.— Edit. 



412 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to be strictly true, ' what good purpose can 
it answer to discover such truths, and to lay 
our weakness open to the world ? ' One 
would think such a question hardly wanted 
a reply. If a real misfortune were lessened 
by concealment ;— if, by shutting our eyes 
to our weakness, we could give our enemies 
an opinion of our strength, none but a 
traitor would withdraw the veil, which 
covered the nakedness of his country. But 
if the contrary be true ; if concealment 
serves only to nourish and increase the mis- 
chief, the conclusion is direct. A good 
subject will endeavour to rouse the atten- 
tion of his country ; — he will give the alarm, 
and point out the danger, against which 
she ought to provide. The pohcy of con- 
cealment is no better than the wisdom of a 
prodigal, who wastes his estate without re- 
flection, and has not courage enough to 
examine his accounts. 

In my last letter, I foretold the great fall 
of the stocks, which has since happened, 
and I now do not scruple to foretell that they 
must and will fall much lower. Yet I am 
not moved by the arts of stockjobbers, or 
by temporary rumours, magnified, if not 
created, for particular purposes in the alley. 
These artifices are directed to maintain a 
fluctuation, not a continued fall. The 
principles on which my reasoning is found- 
ed, are taken generally from the state of 
France and of this country. When I see 
our natural enemy strong enough not only 
to elude a material article of treaty,^ but to 
set us at defiance while they conquer a 
kingdom ; 2 and when I combine this ap- 
pearance of strength with their natural 
restlessness, I cannot doubt of their taking 
the first opportunity to recover their lost 
honour, by a fresh declaration of war. On 
the other hand, considering the hostile tem- 
per of the colonies towards us, the oppress- 
ive weight of a monstrous debt (to which 
a peace of six years has scarce given a sen- 
sible rehef), and, above all, the misery, 



^ His Most Catholic Majesty, being a branch 
of the Bourbon dynasty — in the refusal of his 
ministers to discharge the Manilla ransom. — 
Edit. 



weakness, and distraction of our interior 
government, I cannot have a doubt that our 
enemies now have, or in a very httle time 
will have, the fairest opportunity they can 
wish for to force us into a war. The con- 
clusion, to be drawn from these premises, 
is obvious. It amounts to a moral certainty, 
and leaves no room for hope or apprehen- 
sion. 

To these, which are the most important 
circumstances of our situation, may well be 
added the high price of labour, the decay 
of trade, and the ruinous system on which 
it is conducted. Every minuter article 
conspires against us. The deficiency of the 
civil list must be paid, and cannot be paid 
with less then seven hundred thousand 
pounds. The India Company will yield to 
no terms, which are not founded on an ex- 
press acknowledgment of their exclusive 
property in their conquests in Asia. How 
far their pretensions are just is at least a 
doubtful question. Whether parliament 
will divest them of this property, by a mere 
declaratory law, is a matter of the most 
important consideration. It would be a 
dreadful precedent, because it would shake 
every security of private property. Yet, 
even if that were determined, another 
question remains full of difficulty and dan- 
ger ; — that is, in what manner the public 
will avail themselves of this great right, 
decided by nothing but a vote of parlia- 
ment. 

Sir, I am not affected by the rumours of 
the day. If the stocks rise or fall upon a 
report of tranquilhty or tumult at Boston, ^ I 
am satisfied that it is owing to the arts and 
management of stockjobbers. But I see 
the spirit which has gone abroad through 
the colonies, and I know what consequences 
that spirit must and will produce. If it be 
determined to enforce the authority of the 
legislature, the event will be uncertain ; but 
if we yield to the pretensions of America, 
there is no further doubt about the matter. 
From that moment they become an inde- 
pendent people, they open their trade with 



^ Corsica. — Edit. 

3 See note to Letter XXXIX., p. 240.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



413 



the rest of the world, and England is un- 
done. 

In these circumstances, calamitous as 
they are, I yet think the uniform direction 
of a great and able minister might do much. 
His earliest care, I am persuaded, would 
be to provide a fund to support the first 
alarm and expense of a rupture with France. 
If prepared to meet a war, he might per- 
haps avoid it. His next object would be to 
form a plan or agreement with the colonies. 
He would consent to yield some ground to 
the Americans, if it ^^•ere possible to receive 
a security from them, that they never would 
advance beyond the Une then drawn, upon 
conditions mutually agreed on. By an 
equitable offer of this kind, he would cer- 
tainly unite this country in the support of 
his measures, and I am persuaded he would 
have the reasonable part of the Americans 
of his side. 

These, Sir, unfortunately for us, are views 
too high and important even to be thought 
of, while we are governed as we are. I 
would not descend to a reproachful word 
against men, whose persons I hardly know ; 
but it is impossible for an honest man to 
behold the circumstances, to which a weak, 
distracted administration has reduced us, 
without feeling one pang at least for the 
approaching ruin of Great Britain. 

ATTICUS. 



LETTER XLVI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 12 October, 1768. 

I BELIEVE one may challenge any 
lime or country to produce more noble 
instances of a free and manly spirit, than 
have appeared in several of your late cor- 
respondents. Without direction, without 
information, without promise or hope of 
reward, without personal friendship, favour, 
or acquaintance, several heroes of the pen 
have boldly stood forth and generously 
dared to defend a great minister of state, 
although in the plenitude of his power, and 



invested with the patronage to an infinite 
number of lucrative offices. This, I say, is 
true virtue ; and this virtue your corre- 
spondents, with various hard names, have 
solemnly assured us they possess. 

They have demonstrated, to the satisfac- 
tion of the public, against the calumnies of 
a dull writer, called Lucius, that eveiy part 
of the late conduct of lord Hillsborough 
with regard to sir J. Amherst is just what it 
ought to have been ; nothing ill-intentioned, 
nothing either deficient or redundant ; and 
that it may well serve for a pattern upon all 
similar occasions. 

However, it sometimes happens a little 
perversely, that the very best actions have 
every now and then consequences that are 
somewhat odd— I do not say absolutely 
bad ; but only a little untoward. Thus 
though lord Hillsborough has done his duty 
to a miracle in all parts of this business, and 
that his character comes like gold out of the 
furnace of this fierce contest ; yet so it 
happens, that the event, and the sole event, 
of all this upright intention and wise action 
is, that the nation has at a critical time lost 
to her service sir J. Amherst ; and has 
gained to it lord Boutetort. 

This is a little crooked with regard to the 
political effect of the measure ; but I hope 
it is set to rights by the moral consequence. 
Rewards and punishments are so distributed 
as to point out for the future, to all people 
in the civil or military fines, the 'conduct 
they ought to pursue, in such a manner, 
that it is impossible they should mistake 
their way. For sir Jeffery Amherst has lost 
;^2,300 a year by his folly lord Hills- 
borough and lord Boutetort have each 
acquired as much by their wisdom. I can- 
not forbear to congratulate the public upon 
all these favourable appearances. 
I am. Sir, 
Your humble servant, 

TEMPORUM FELICITAS. 



414 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER XLVIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 15 October, 1768. 

Your correspondent, who calls 
himself A Friend to Public Credit, has 
given us one of the most extravagant con- 
ceits that ever entered into the brain of a 
politician. He assures us that a rupture 
with France or Spain is highly improbable 
because the secretary of state 1 for that 
department possesses no share in his 
master's confidence, and is in open enmity 
with his colleagues in office. Supposing the 
argument to be just, let us see how far it 
will extend. One of his Majesty's ministers 
is hated and distrusted ; ergo, a war is im- 
probable. But if two of them should happen 
to be in that unpleasant situation, the im- 
probability would increase, and so we 
should proceed to an inevitable conclusion. 
If all the ministry were separately suspected 
by their master, and reciprocally detested 
by one another (which I fancy is not far 
from the truth), a declaration of war would 
be the last thing to be expected. At this 
rate the peace of this country is established 
upon a foundation equally new and secure ; 
upon the distraction of the councils by 
which we are governed. What a pity it is 
that not one article in this pretty syllogism 
is true ! I agree with your correspondent, 
that when a nation is governed as we are, 
our constant prayer should be. Give peace 
in the time of these miriisters, O Lord! 
But I fear that the same reasons, which 
ought to keep us quiet, will operate in a 
contrary direction upon our enemies. I 
fear they only wait tintil the differences with 
our colonies and the divisions among our- 
selves are arrived at a crisis, and that then 
they will overwhelm us with an open war. 
In the mean time the House of Bourbon 
are labouring to unite their strength, and 
to extend the bounds of their dominion. 
Their insatiable ambition will not spare 

^ Lord Shelburne. 



even the father of their church, who must 
be entirely dispossessed of his territories, 
unless the Protestant powers interpose in his 
defence. It was and ought for ever to be 
our policy to support this prince in his 
temporal power, without any regard to his 
religion. If he were a Turk, he ought to 
be protected in the possession of his domin- 
ions against the House of Bourbon. Or 
are we to sink into a lethargic stupidity, 
while the French conquer Corsica and over- 
run Italy, and sit with our arms across, 
until they thunder at our gate ? There is 
certainly some dreadful infatuation, which 
hangs over and directs the councils of this 
country. Our ministers drive us headlong 
to destruction, while their emissaries insult 
us with assurances that the divisions among 
the king's servants form the best security of 
peace with our enemies. God knows. Sir, 
it is time to rouse and shake off this le- 
thargy. It is time for parliament to inter- 
pose, if yet there be a hope of saving Great 
Britain. Our last constitutional resource is 
vested in parliament. By whose advice or 
neglect the French were suffered to land in 
Corsica should be one of the first objects of 
their enquiry, and whether French money 
has been given or received here. Every 
measure of government opens an ample 
field for a parliamentary inquisition. If 
this resource should fail us, our next and 
latest appeal must be made to heaven. 

BRUTUS. 



LETTER XLVIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 

Sir, ig October, 1768. 

We are assured by the advocates 
of the ministry, that while lord Shelburne 
is secretary of state, we can have no reason 
to apprehend a rupture with France or 
Spain. This proposition is singular enough, 
and I believe turns upon a refinement very 
distant from the simplicity of common 
sense. But, admitting it to be self-evident, 
the conclusion is such as I apprehend your 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



415 



correspondent, who signs himself A Friend 
to Public Credit, did not clearly foresee. 
If lord Shelburne's remaining in- ofifice con- 
stitutes a security of peace, his being sud- 
denly removed must amount to a declara- 
tion of war. Now, Sir, the fact is, that his 
Lordship's removal has been for some 
weeks in agitation, and is within these few 
days absolutely determined.-^ If I were a 
party-writer, the indiscretion of the minis- 
terial advocates would give me as many 
advantages as even the wretched conduct 
of the ministry themselves. But I write for 
the public, and in that view hold myself far 
above a httle triumph over men, whose 
compositions are as weak as the cause they 
defend. 2 

In my former letters I have given you a 
melancholy but a true representation of the 
state of this country. Every packet from 
America and the continent confirms it. 
The demonstration of facts follows the 
probability of argument, and the prediction 
of the present hour is the experience of the 
next. If you will now permit me to offer 
my opinion of the great persons, under 
whose administration we are reduced to 
this deplorable state, the public will be 
enabled to judge whether these are the 
men most likely to reheve us from it. The 
curiosity of personal malice shall make no 
part of this enquiry. As pubhc men we 
have a right to be acquainted with their 
real characters, because we are interested 
in their public conduct. 

When the duke of Grafton first entered 
into office, it was the fashion of the times 
to suppose that young men might have 
wisdom without experience. They thought 
so themselves, and the most important 
affairs of this coimtry were committed to 
the first trial of their abilities. His Grace 
had honourably flesht his maiden sword 
in the field of opposition, and had gone 
through all the discipline of the minority 



^ Lord Shelburne resigned October 21, 1768. — 
Edit. 

^ See Private Letter, No. 5, in which _ the 
author makes a similar remark upon the writers 
in defence of the then administration. — Edit. 

3 See notes in p. 136. When, jupon the in- 



with credit. He dined at Wildman's, 
railed at favourites, looked up to lord 
Chatham with astonishment, and was the 
declared advocate of Mr Wilkes. It after- 
wards pleased his Grace to enter into ad- 
ministration with his friend lord Rocking- 
ham, and, in a very httle time, it pleased 
his Grace to abandon him. He then 
accepted of the Treasury upon terms 
which lord Temple had disdained. For a 
short time his submission to lord Chatham 
was unhmited. He could not answer a 
private letter without lord Chatham's per- 
mission. I presume he was then learning 
his trade, for he soon set up for himself. 
Until he declared himself the minister, his 
character had been but little understood. 
From that moment a system of conduct, 
directed by passion and caprice, not only 
reminds us that he is a young man, but a 
young man without solidity or judgment. 
One day he desponds and threatens to 
resign. The next, he finds his blood 
heated, and swears to his friends he is de- 
termined to go on. In his public measures 
we have seen no proof either of ability or 
consistency. The Stamp Act had been re- 
pealed (no matter how unwisely) under the 
preceding administration. The colonies 
had reason to triumph, and were returning 
to their good humour. The point was 
decided, when this young man thought 
proper to revive it. Without either plan or 
necessity, he adopts the spirit of Mr Gren- 
ville's measures, and renews the question of 
taxation in a form more odious and less 
effectual than that of the law which had 
been repealed. 

With respect to the invasion of Corsica, ^ 
it will be matter of parhamentary enquiry, 
whether he has carried on a secret negotia- 
tion witia the French court, in terras con- 
tradictory to the resolution of council, and 
to the instructions drawn up thereupon by 
his Majesty's secretary of state. ^ If it shall 

vitation of the Genoese, the French invaded Cor- 
sica, a remonstrance was presented by the Eng- 
hsh minister at Paris ; but here the resistance 
dropped. — Edit. 

4 A motion which tended to an enquiry of this 
kind was made in the House of Commons by 



.i6 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



appear that he has quitted the line of his 
department to betray tlie honour and 
security of his country, and if there be a 
power sufficient to protect him, in such a 
case, against public justice, the constitution 
oi Great Britain is at an end. 

His standing foremost in the persecution 
of Mr Wilkes, if former declarations and 
connexions be considered, is base and 
contemptible.! The man whom he now 
brands with treason and blasphemy, but a 
very few years ago was the duke of Graf- 
ton's friend, nor is his identity altered, 
except by his misfortunes. — In the last 
instance of his Grace's judgment and con- 
sistency, we see him, after trying and 
deserting every party, throw himself into 
the arms of a set of men, whose poUtical 
principles he had always pretended to 
abhor. These men I doubt not will teach 
him the folly of his conduct better than I 
can. They grasp at every thing, and will 
soon push him from his seat. His private 
history would but httle deserve our atten- 
tion, if he had not voluntarily brought it 
into public notice. I will not call the 
amusements of a young man criminal, 
though I think they become his age better 
than his station. There is a period at 
which the most unruly passions are grati- 
fied or exhausted, and which leaves the 
mind clear and undisturbed in its attention 
to business. His Grace's gallantry would 
be offended if we were to suppose him 
within many years of being thus qualified 
for public affairs. As for the rest, making 
every allowance for the frailty of human 
nature, I can make none for a continued 
breach of public decorum ; ^ nor can I be- 
lieve that man very zealous for the interest 
of his country, who sets her opinion at 
defiance. This nobleman, however, has 
one claim to respect, since it has pleased 
our gracious sovereign to make hirn prime 
minister of Great Britain. 



Hans Sloane, Esq., but the uninfluenced, un- 
placed, taipensioned majority, thought proper to 
put a negative upon it. 

' See Letter XL — Edit. 

^ See Letter XIV., and Miscellaneous Let- 
ter, No. XX — Edit. 



The chancellor of the Exchequer ^ is a 
moderate man, and pretends to no higher 
merit than that of an humble assistant in 
office. If he escapes censure, he is too 
prudent to aim at applause. The necessity 
of his affairs had separated him from earlier 
friendships and connexions, and if he were 
of any consequence, vi'e might lament that 
an honest man should find it necessary to 
disgrace himself in a post he is utterly un- 
fit for. But we have other objects to attend 
to. It depends greatly upon the present 
management of the finances, whether this 
country shall stand or fall. A common 
clerk in office may conduct the ordinary 
supplies of the year, but to give a sensible 
relief to public credit, or to provide funds 
against a rupture abroad, are objects above 
him. To remove those oppressions which 
lie heaviest upon trade, and, by the same 
operation, to improve the revenue, demands 
a superior capacity, supported by the most 
extensive knowledge. To vulgar minds it 
may appear unattainable, because vulgar 
minds make no distinction between the 
highly difficult and the impossible.'* 

The earl of Hillsborough ^ set out with 
a determined attachment to the court 
party, let who would be minister. He had 
one vice less than other courtiers, for he 
never even pretended to be a patriot. The 
Oxford election gave him an opportunity of 
showing some skill in parliamentary man- 
agement, while an uniform obsequious sub- 
mission to his superiors introduced him 
into lucrative places, and crowned his 
ambition with a peerage. He is now what 
they call a king's man ; ready as the closet 
directs, to be any thing or nothing, but 
always glad to be employed. A new de- 
partment, created on purpose for him, 
attracted a greater expectation than he has 
yet been able to support. In his first act of 
power he has betrayed a most miserable 
want of judgment. A provision for lord 



3 Lord North.— Edit. 

'' See lord North's talents further discussed in 
Letter XXXIX., where the writer does not 
appear to entertain a much higher opinion of 
them than in his present address. — Edit. 

5 Minister for the colonial department. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



417 



Boutetort was not an object of importance 
sufficient to justify a risk of the first impres- 
sion which a new minister must give of 
himself to the pubhc. For my own part I 
hold him in some measure excused ; be- 
cause 1 am persuaded the defence he has 
delivered privately to his friends is true, 
' That the measure came from another and 
a higher quarter.' But still he is the tool, 
and ceasing to be criminal sinks into con- 
tempt. In his new department I am sorry 
to say he has shown neither abilities nor 
good sense. His letters to the colonies 
contain nothing but expressions equally 
loose and violent. The minds of the 
Americans are not to be conciliated by a 
language, which only contradicts without 
attempting to persuade. His correspond- 
ence, upon the whole, is so defective both 
in design and composition, that it would 
deserve our pity, if the consequences to be 
dreaded from it did not excite our indigna- 
tion. This treatment of the colonies, added 
to his refusal to present a petition from one 
of them to the king (a direct breach of the 
declaration of rights), will naturally throw 
them all into a flame. I protest. Sir, I am 
astonished at the infatuation which seems 
to have directed his whole conduct. The 
other ministers were proceeding in their 
usual course, without foreseeing or regard- 
ing consequences ; but this nobleman 
seems to have marked out, by a determined 
choice, the means to precipitate our de- 
struction. 

The earl of Shelburne had initiated him- 
self in business, by carrying messages be- 
tween the earl of Bute and Mr Fox, and 
was for some time a favourite with both. 
Before he was an ensign he thought himself 
fit to be a general, and to be a leading 
minister before he ever saw a public office. 
The life of this young man is a satire on 
mankind. The treachery which deserts a 
friend, might be a virtue, compared to the 



^ Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. — Edit. 
^ Lord Camden. — Edit. 

3 See Letter LIX.— Edit. 

4 Lord Chatham was at this time so severely- 
tortured and worn away by the gout, that it was 
supposed he would never be able to resume an 



fawning baseness which attaches itself to a 
declared enemy. Lord Chatham became 
his idol, introduced him into the most diffi- 
cult department of the state, and left him 
there to shift for himself. It was a master- 
piece of revenge. Unconnected, unsup- 
ported, he remains in office without interest 
or dignity, as if the income were an equiva- 
lent for all loss of reputation. Without 
spirit or judgment to take an advantageous 
moment of retiring, he submits to be in- 
sulted, as long as he is paid for it. But 
even this abject conduct will avail him 
nothing. Like his great archetype, the 
vapour on which he rose deserts him, and 
now, 

'Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he 



I cannot observe without reluctance, that 
the only man of real abilities in the present 
administration, is not an object either of 
respect or esteem. The character of the 
lord chancellor ^ is a strong proof that an 
able, consistent, judicious conduct, depends 
upon other qualities than those of the head. 
Passions and party, in his Lordship's un- 
deistanding, had united all the extremes. 
They gave him to the world in one moment, 
the patron of natural liberty, independent 
of civil constitutions ; in the next, the as- 
sertor of prerogative independent of law.^ 
How he will advise the crown in the 
present crisis, is of more importance to the 
public than to himself. His patronage of 
Mr Wilkes, and of America, have succeeded 
to his wish. They have given him a peer- 
age, a pension, and the seals ; and as for 
his future opinions, he can adopt none for 
which he may not find a precedent and 
justification in his former conduct. 

The earl of Chatham — I had much to 
say, but it were inhuman to persecute, when 
Providence has marked out the example to 
mankind ! ^ 



active part in politics. His Lordship had re- 
signed his post of lord privy seal three days 
previous to the date of this letter, and was suc- 
ceeded in that office, on the 2nd of November 
following, by the earl of Bristol. — Edit. 



27 



4i8 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



My lord Granby is certainly a brave 
man, and a generous man, and both with- 
out design or reflection. How far the army 
is improved under his direction, is another 
question. His German friends will all have 
regiments ; and it is enough to say of his 
Lordship that he has too much good humour 
to contradict the reigning minister. 

The length of this letter will not permit 
me to do particular justice to the duke of 
Bedford's friends ; neither is it necessary. 
With one united view they have but one 
character. My lord Gower and lord Wey- 
mouth were distressed, and Rigby was in- 
satiable. The school they were bred in 
taught them how to abandon their friends, 
without deserting their principles. There 
is a littleness even in their ambition ; for 
money is their first object. Their professed 
opinions upon some great points are so dif- 
ferent from those of the party with which 
they are now united,' that the council- 
chamber is become a scene of open hostili- 
ties. While the fate of Great Britain is at 
stake, these worthy counsellors dispute 
without decency, advise without sincerity, 
resolve without decision, and leave the 
measure to be executed by the man who 
voted against it. This, I conceive, is the 
last disorder of the state. The consultation 
meets but to disagree. Opposite medicines 
are prescribed, and the last fixed on is 
changed by the hand that gives it. 

Such is the council, by which the best of 
sovereigns is advised, and the greatest 
nation upon earth governed. Separately 
the figures are only offensive ; in a group 
they are formidable. Commerce languishes, 
manufactures are oppressed, and public 
credit already feels her approaching dissolu- 
tion : yet, under the direction of this coun- 
cil, we are to prepare for a dreadful contest 
with the colonies, and a war with the whole 
House of Bourbon. I am not surprised that 
the generality of men should endeavour to 
shut their eyes to this melancholy prospect. 
Yet I am filled with grief and indignation, 
when I behold a wise and gallant people 
lost in a stupidity, which does not feel, 
because it will not look forward. The voice 



of one man will hardly be heard when the 
voice of truth and reason is neglected ; but 
as far as mine extends, the authors of our 
ruin shall be marked out to the public. I 
will not tamely submit to be sacrificed, nor 
shall this country perish without warning. 
ATTICUS. 



LETTER XLIX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 26 October, 1768. 

The great abilities which have 
distinguished the character of the earl of 
Rochford, have justly procured him the 
love of his countrymen, and have entitled 
him to the favour and protection of his so- 
vereign ; it was therefore with universal 
approbation that the public received the 
promises of his advancement at this im- 
portant crisis to the important office of 
secretary of state. It was with a degree of 
hope, to which they have long been unac- 
customed, that they flattered themselves 
foreign business would now be no longer 
neglected. They had reason to expect 
much from a man to whom nature had 
been lavish, and whose natural talents, 
great as they were, must have been con- 
siderably augmented by a long residence 
and a constant attention to business in 
courts, which are perhaps superior to all 
others in the arts and mysteries of negotia- 
tion. It was now that they felt themselves 
secure in the assurance that the correspond- 
ences with the courts of Paris, Madrid, and 
Turin were to be carried on by a man above 
all others quahfied for so arduous a task ; 
by a man who had gained great reputation 
as an ambassador in each of them. 

It was in vain that the enemies to admin- 
istration endeavoured to suggest that that 
nobleman was not singled out on account 
of his superior abilities, but on account of 
his neutrality and non-attachment to any 
particular men or measures ; it was in vain 
that they represented his nomination as a 
mere act of necessity, resulting from the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



419 



incapacity of the leaders to promote any 
other without widening their bottom, which 
was a measure that, above all others, they 
most apprehended. 

These suggestions had little or no effect ; 
they were either totally disbelieved or dis- 
regarded ; the consequence was good, and 
the public were not at all curious to know 
the cause ; their joy, that such a measure 
was to take place, was only equalled by 
their suiprise ; and as their joy proceeded 
from a reflection of the past, as it related 
to lord Rochford, they were inattentive to 
the present, as it related to others. 

What pity it is that they were so soon 
disappointed, and that a joy so well found- 
ed was destined to be of so short a dura- 
tion. In proportion as they were elevated 
with the hopes of his being taken into 
office, so are they dejected by the manner 
of his appointment. The course and order 
of business appears to have been violated, 
and that vacancy, to which his Lordship 
ought to have succeeded, and which he was 
so well quaUfied to fill, has been suffered 
to be possessed by another altogether a 
stranger to the principal wheels of those 
machines, which it becomes his duty to 
regulate ; and the abilities of the earl have 
been as far as possible thwarted by his 
being plunged into a correspondence with 
courts, of whose maxims and interests he is 
no better qualified to judge than any other 
of his Majesty's servants who would make 
use of as much attention, and who may be 
happily endowed with as much penetration. 
It is now then that the public have both 
cause and inclination to ask a question, 
which they before thought useless and im- 
pertinent : it is now that with horror they 
reflect on the intelligence communicated by 
your correspondent Atticus ;'^ it is now 
that they tremble at the thoughts of a 
secret negotiation with the French court in 
relation to Corsica ; and it is now that they 
ask. Why was lord Rochford appointed 



^ See the preceding letter. — Edit. 
" See this subject further discussed in Letter 
I.— Edit. 



secretary of state, and for the northern de- 
partment ? 2 

WHY? 



LETTER L. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 27 October, 1768. 

When an anonymous writer tells 
the public, that a great minister, who hap- 
pens to be his particular friend, has given 
him assurances of any sort, with regard to 
state affairs, the authority is doubly sus- 
picious. In the first place, that such 
writers should have such friends is not, in 
the highest degree, probable. In the next, 
it is much to be doubted, whether minis- 
ters of state always tell the truth even to 
their most intimate acquaintance. I take 
for granted, the author of the letter, signed 
Plain Truth and Justice,^ '^ a modest man, 
since he expects an implicit reliance on the 
bare assertion of a person entirely unknown 
to us. But I fear he will find himself a 
httle disappointed, for the public is not to 
be imposed upon by such gross artifices. 
The letters, in which your correspondent At- 
tic2is\\2A foretold the decHne of public credit, 
seemed to rest upon a very different footing. 
He made no assertions of his own, because 
he neither required nor expected any reli- 
ance on his personal credit or authority. 
He stated facts too notorious to be disputed, 
and he reasoned upon them in a way, which 
there has yet been no attempt to answer. 
This is the fair ground on which his oppo- 
nents ought to meet him. Vague assertions 
have no claim to credit, and, if they had, 
would amount to no proof. What ministers 
are pleased to say, or what their friends say 
for them, is but of little moment. A man, 
who in the present crisis would direct his 
conduct upon sure grounds, ought to ex- 
amine the real state of public affairs, and, 
according as he finds them, act with pru- 



3 He alludes to a correspondent in the Public 
Advertiser, who had replied to his former letter, 
under this signature. — Edit. 



420 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



dence for himself and his family. I know 
that an artful combination in the alley, 
may, for a short time, raise or sink the 
price of stocks a trifle. But no arts, no 
combination, can support them against the 
reality of national distress. The maxim 
holds through life. A beggar may cut a 
figure for a day, but his ruin is inevitable, 
and his creditors perish with him. 

Your correspondent assures us that no 
money will be wanted for the ensuing year. 
With all due respect to an anonymous as- 
sertion, I should be glad to know by what 
sort of reasoning he would support it. Do 
the ministry mean to leave the debt on the 
ci\'il list unpaid ? I will tell him that they 
cannot, dare not do it. This debt amounts 
to above six hundred thousand pounds, and 
if they can pay it without money, so much 
the better. — Have they made any agreement 
with the East-India Company? No — 
Have they made any provision for outstand- 
ing navy and victualling bills ? I ansvcer, 
they must whether they will or no. — Have 
the Bank agreed to continue creditors for 
the last million they advanced to govern- 
ment? I answer, that the Bank have no 
confidence in the present administration, 
and will not trust them. As to taking the 
four per cents, entirely out of the market, 
Mr Grenville, or an able financier, w^ho 
possessed the confidence of the public, 
might perhaps accomplish it, but it is not 
an object within the reach of the present 
Treasury board. They talk of it in their 
dreams, and forget it when they wake.i 

These, Sir, are considerations independ- 
ent of a war, which hangs over us, and of 
a contest with the colonies, which in no way 
can end favourably for this country. As to 
moderate qualifying measures, I know but 
one which the Americans will accept of, 
and that is an absolute release from all 
subjection. They will reject with disdain 
an offer to be represented in parliament, 
because they will be independent. They 
found the effect of their last combination, 
and when they demand a repeal of an act of 

^ See Letter XXXIX., in which the failure 
of lord North to effect this object is censured 



the legislature, it must be done without 
conditions. But, in the name of common 
sense, what useful purpose will our submis- 
sion answer ? Upon the repeal of the Stamp 
Act, our exports to America, instead of 
doubling, as had been promised, diminish- 
ed considerably. What are we doing then, 
but surrendering the first essential rights 
and principles of the constitution for the 
sake of a bribe, of which we are cheated at 
last? — We may retire to our prayers, for 
the game is up. 

BRUTUS. 



LETTER LI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 14 November^ 1768. 

When I foretold the approach of 
a foreign war, the certainty of a rupture 
with the colonies, and the dechne of public 
credit, my opinion was chiefly founded on 
the character, circumstances, and abilities 
of the present administration. Fortune has 
but little share in the events most interest- 
ing to mankind. Individuals perish by 
their own imprudence, and the ruin of an 
empire is no more than the misconduct of 
a minister or a king. Without the credit 
of personal reputation, divided as a min- 
istry, and unsupported by talents or ex- 
perience, his Majesty's servants had left the 
field of national calamity wide open to pre- 
diction. It seems they were determined to 
accomplish more than even their enemies 
had foretold. For my own part, I am not 
personally their enemy, and I could have 
wished that their conduct had not made 
the name of friend to the ministry irrecon- 
cileable with that of friend to Great Britain. 

The most contemptible character in pri- 
vate life, and the most ruinous to private 
fortunes, is that which possesses neither 
judgment nor inclination to do right, nor 
resolution enough to be consistent in doing 
wronsf. Such a man loses all the credit of 



by the author, and explained in a note appended 
to it. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



421 



firmness and uniformity, and suffers the 
whole reproach of weak or mahcious inten- 
tions. In pohtics, there is no other min- 
isterial character so pernicious to the hon- 
our of a prince, or so fatal to the welfare of 
a nation. It is of the highest importance 
to enquire, whether the present ministry 
deserve it. 

The name of lord Chatham's administra- 
tion was soon lost in that of the duke of 
Grafton. His Grace took the lead, and 
made himself answerable for the measures 
of a council, at which he was supposed to 
preside. He had gone as far as any man 
in support of Mr Pitt's doctrine. That pai'- 
liament had no right to lay a tax tipon 
Avierica^ for the sole ptirpose of raising a 
reveime. It was a doctrine on which lord 
Chatham and the chancellor ^ formed their 
administration, and his Grace had con- 
curred in it with all his sincerity. Yet the 
first act of his own administration was to 
impose that tax upon America, which has 
since thrown the whole continent into a 
flame. A wise man would have let the 
question drop ; a good man would have 
felt and adhered to the principles he pro- 
fessed. While the gentle Conway breathed 
into his ear, he was all lenity and modera- 
tion. The colonies were dutiful children, 
and Great Britain a severe parent. A com- 
bination to ruin this country was no more 
than an amicable agreement, and rebellion 
was a natural right confirm.ed by the revo- 
lution. But now it seems his Grace's opin- 
ions are altered with his connexions. The 
measures of the colonies are subversive of 
the constitution; they manifest a disposition 
to throiu off their dependence, and vigorous 
measures must be enforced at the point of 
the sword. In vain may we look for the 
temper and firmness of a great minister ; — 
we shall find nothing but the passion or 
weakness of a boy ; — the enervated languor 
of a consumption, or the false strength of a 
delirium. 

The same inconsistency will be found to 
prevail through every measure and opera- 

^ Lord Camden.— Edit. 



tion of government. Perhaps there may 
be discovered something more than supine- 
ness in the first neglect of Corsica, and 
something worse than inconsistency in the 
contradiction given to lord Rochford's 
spirited declaration to the court of France." 
His Grace has lately adopted the opposite 
extreme, and scruples not to give an alarm- 
ing shock to public credit, by hints little 
short of a declaration of war. What is this 
but the undetermined timidity of a coward, 
who trembles on the brink, until he plunges 
headlong into the stream. 

In one gazette we see sir Jeffery Amherst 
dismissed ; in the very next we see him re- 
stored, and both without reason or decency. 
The peerage, which had been absolutely 
refused, is granted, and as in the first in- 
stance the royal faith was violated, in the 
second the royal dignity is betrayed. But 
this perhaps is a compliment to the duke's 
new friendship with the earl of Hillsborough. 

Without approving of Mr Wilkes's con- 
duct, I lament his fate. The duke of 
Grafton, who contributed to his support 
abroad, has given the mandate for his ex- 
pulsion. But I trust there is yet a spirit, 
which will not obey such mandates. This 
honourable enterprise will probably be de- 
feated, and leave the author of it nothing 
but a distinguished excess of infamy, the 
last consolation of a profligate mind. 

Is it possible. Sir, that such a ministry 
can long remain united, or support them- 
selves if they were united? The duke of 
Grafton, it is true, has no scruple nor de- 
licacy in the choice of his measures. They 
are the measures of the day, and vary as 
often as the weather. But his companions 
had each their separate plan, to which, foi 
the credit of government, and the benefit 
of this country, they have severally adhered. 
The intrepid thoughtless spirit of the com- 
mander-in-chief looks no further than to 
the disposal of commissions. He is the 
friend and patron of the military. W'ith 
this character he suffers the army to be 
robbed of a regiment, by w;iy of pension to 



See Letter XII.— Edit. 



422 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the noble disinterested house of Percy ; and 
sir Jeffery Amherst to be sacrificed without 
pretending to the credit of restoring him.i 
His Lordship's conduct perplexes me. I 
am at a loss which to admire most ; the 
penetrating sagacity with which he under- 
stands the rights of the army, or the firm- 
ness with which he defends them. 

When an ungracious act was to be done, 
the earl of Hillsborough was chosen for the 
instrument of it. He deserved, since he 
submitted to bear, the whole reproach of 
sir Jeffery Amherst's dismission. The gal- 
lant knight obtains his price, and the noble 
earl, with whatever appetite, must meet 
him with a smile of congratulation, and, 
Dear sir Jeffery, I most cordially wish you 
joy ! After all, it must be confessed, there 
are some mortifications which might touch 
even the callous spirit of a courtier. 

The chancellor of the Exchequer has 
many deficiencies to make good besides 
those of land and malt ; and to say the 
truth, he has a gallant way of doing it. 
He gallops bravely through thick and thin, 
as the court directs, and I dare say would 
defend even an honest cause with as much 
zeal and eloquence, as if he were ordered 
to show his parts upon 7iullum tempusp' or 
a Cumberland election. 

It would be unjust to the duke of Bed- 
ford's friends to attribute their conduct to 
any but the motives which they themselves 
profess. Mr Rigby is so modest a man, 
that the imputation of public virtue, or pri- 
vate good faith, would offend his delicacy, 
if he did not feel, as he certainly does, the 
genuine emotions of patriotism and friend- 
ship warm in his breast. They argued not 
ill for ambition, while they asked for no- 
thing but profit ; and when the duke of 
Grafton has exhausted the treasury, he will 
find that every other power departs with 
the power of giving, ' 

In this and my former letters I have pre- 
sented to you, with plainness and sincerity, 
the melancholy condition to which we are 



^ See LetterTII.— Edit. 

* See Letter LVIL, and editor's note to 
Miscellaneous Letter, No, XIV, —Edit. 



reduced. The characters of a weak and 
worthless ministry would hardly deserve the 
attention of history, but that they are fatally 
united, and must be recorded with the mis- 
fortunes of their country. 

If there be yet a spark of virtue left 
among us, this great nation shall not be 
sacrificed to the fluctuating interests or 
wayward passions of a minister, nor even to 
the caprices of a monarch. If there be no 
virtue left, it is no matter who are ministers, 
nor how soon they accomplish our destruc- 
tion. 

ATTICUS. 



LETTER LII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

SiB, 21 November, 1768, 

It will soon be decided by the 
highest authority whether the justice of our 
laws, and the liberty of our constitution, 
have been essentially violated in the person 
of Mr Wilkes, 2 As a public man his fate 
will be determined, nor is it safe or neces- 
sary at present to enter into the merits of 
his cause. We are interested in this qaes- 
tion no further than as he is a part of a 
well-regulated society. If a member of it 
be injured, the laws and constitution will 
defend him. But where is the law to en- 
force the engagements of private faith, or 
to punish the breach of them ? Where 
shall he apply for redress, with whom all 
ties of honour, professions of friendship, and 
obligations of party have been violated or 
betrayed ? A man so injured has no redress 
or consolation, but what he finds in the 
resentment and generous sympathy of man- 
kind. 

The violation of party faith is of Itself too 
common to excite surprise or indignation. 
Political friendships are so well understood, 
that we can hardly pity the simplicity they 
deceive ; and if Mr Wilkes had only been 



3 Upon the issue of the General Warrant. 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



423 



deserted, he would but have given us one 
example more of the folly of relying on such 
engagements. But his, I conceive, is a 
singular situation. There is scarce an in- 
stance of party merit so great as his, or so 
ill rewarded. Other men have been aban- 
doned by their friends : — Mr Wilkes alone 
is oppressed by them. One would think 
that the first lord of the Treasury ^ and 
the chaucellor 2 might have been contented 
with forgetting the man, to whom they 
principally owed their elevation ; — but 
hearts like theirs are not so easily satisfied. 
They left him unsupported v/hen they 
ceased to want his assistance, and, to cover 
the reproach of passive ingratitude, they 
pursue him to destruction. The bounds of 
human science are still unknown, but this 
assuredly is the last limit of human de- 
pravity. Notorious facts speak for them- 
selves, and, in this case, an honest man 
will want no spur to rouse his indignation. 
Men of a different character would do well 
to consider what their security is with a 
minister, who breaks without scruple 
through all engagements of party, and is 
weak enough to set all public shame at 
defiance. There is a firmness of character, 
which will support a minister, even against 
his vices ; but where is the dependence of 
his friends, when they have no hold either 
on his heart or his understanding ? Detested 
by the better part of mankind, he will soon 
be suspected by the worst, for no man 
relies securely on another, whom he thinks 
less honest and less wise than himself. 

In the present instance the duke of Graf- 
ton may possibly find that he has played a 
foolish game. He rose 'by Mr Wilkes's 
popularity, and it is not improbable that he 
may fall by it. 

JUNIUS. 



^ The duke of Grafton.— Edit. 
' Lord Camden.— Edit. 



LETTER LI 1 1. 
For the Public Advertiser. 

15 December, 1768. 
to the right hon. george grenville. 
Sir, 

If there be any thing improper in 
this address, the singularity of your present 
situation will, I hope, excuse it. Your con- 
duct attracts the attention, because it is 
highly interesting to the welfare, of the 
public, and a private man, who only ex- 
presses what thousands think, cannot well 
be accused of flattery or detraction. If we 
may judge by what passes every day in a 
great assembly, you already possess all the 
constituent parts of a minister, except the 
honour of distributing, or the emolument of 
receiving, the public money. These, in the 
contemplation of the present ministry, are 
the most essential ornaments of office. 
They are the dec^is et iidame?i of a respect- 
able administration, and the last that a 
prudent administration will relinquish. As 
for the authority, the credit, or the busi- 
ness of their offices, they are ready to resign 
them to you without reluctance. With 
regard to their appearance and behaviour 
within-doors, these docile creatures find a re- 
hef in jK<32^r understanding from the burthen 
of thinking, and in your direction from the 
labour of acting. This, however, is no 
more than the natural precedence of supe- 
rior abilities and knowledge. Folly cannot 
long take the pas of wisdom, and ignor- 
ance, sooner or later, must submit to ex- 
perience. Yet, considering what sort of 
heads you have to deal with, the task of 
giving them instruction must be a heavy 
one. The triumph is hardly equal to the 
labour which attends it. To convey in- 
struction into heads which perceive no- 
tlaing, is as hard a task as to instil sen- 
timents into hearts that feel nothing. 
In both these articles, I think, his Majesty's 
present servants are invulnerable. They 
are of so strange a composition, that 
knowledge will neither penetrate the sub- 



424 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



stance, nor shame stick upon the sur- 
face. They have one short remedy for 
every inconvenience, a remedy which tyrants 
make use of, and fools profess, without 
scruple or management. Force is their 
grand arcamim imperii. If this be the 
executive power of the crown, they possess 
and exert it to a miracle. Red and brown 
makes all the difference. To Southwark 
the guards are detached in their uniforms ; 
— to Brentford they march like gentlemen, 
with orders to change their colours in the 
blood of this country. This, Sir, is the last 
irresistible argument of kings ; — the only 
one which your abilities cannot answer, nor 
your integrity oppose with effect. In vain 
shall you demand an account of the most 
flagrant waste of public money. The 
ministry are sure of being protected by the 
ruffians who received it. The murder of 
his Majesty's English subjects calls aloud, 
but calls in vain, for justice. To complain 
is dangerous, to prosecute might be fatal. 
We are arrived at that dreadful crisis, at 
which open murders may well be succeeded 
by secret assassination. May heaven avert 
the omen ! 

Your weight and authority in parliament 
are acknowledged by the submission of 
your opponents. Your credit with the 
public is equally extensive and secure, be- 



^ The warm attachment of Junius to every 
part of the conduct of this distinguished states- 
man, may perhaps be conceived to import some- 
thing more than a mere political concurrence of 
sentiment, and to indicate an ardent personal 
friendship. The editor has found it necessary 
to glance at such an idea on several former oc- 
casions. Yet, for the honour of Junius, it ought 
to be observed, that there were few poHtical 
characters of the day who were more entitled to 
his panegyric. Upon which subject the reader 
will not be displeased at being presented with 
the following brief sketch of Mr Grenville's 
character from the pen of a gentleman to whom 
these notes have been already indebted, and who 
had repeated opportunities of forming a correct 
estimate of his worth. It is extracted from the 
second volume of Mr Knox's Extra Official 
State Papers, from which a letter written by Mr 
Grenville, on the subject of American politics, 
has been selected in note to Miscellaneous Let- 
ter, No. XXXI., p. 390. The anecdote respect- 
ing Florida and Louisiana is infinitely creditable 
to his 'shrewd inflexible judgment' as a states- 
man, and his conduct as a minister is in many 



cause it is founded on a system of conduct 
wisely adopted and firmly maintained. You 
have invariably adhered to one cause, one 
language, and when your friends deserted 
that cause they deserted you. They who 
dispute the rectitude of your opinions, 
admit that your conduct has been uniform, 
manly, and consistent. This letter, I 
doubt not, will be attributed to some party 
friend, by men who expect no applause 
but from their dependants. But you, Sir, 
have the testimony of your enemies in 
your favour. After years of opposition, 
we see them revert to those very measures, 
with violence, with hazard and disgrace, 
which, in the first instance, might have 
been conducted with ease, with dignity and 
moderation. 

While parliament preserves its constitu- 
tional authority, you will preserve yours. 
As long as there is a real representation of 
the people, you will be heard in that great 
assembly with attention, deference, and 
respect ; and if, fatally for England, the 
designs of the present ministry should at 
last succeed, you will have the consolation 
to reflect that your voice was heard, until 
the voice of truth and reason was drowned 
in the din of arms ; and that your influence 
in parliament was irresistible until every 
question was decided by the sword. 1 



respects not unworthy the imitation of those who 
hold the same dignified situations in the present 
day. 

' Mr Grenville, under a manner rather austere 
and forbidding, covered a heart as feeling and 
tender as any man ever possessed. He liked 
office as well for its emoluments as its power ; 
but in his attention to himself he never failed to 
pay regard to the situations and circumstances 
of his friends, though to neither would he warp 
the public interest or service in the smallest 
degree ; rigid in his opinions of public justice 
and integrity, and firm to inflexibility in the 
construction of his mind, he reprobated every 
suggestion of the political expediency of over- 
looking frauds or evasions in the payment or 
collection of the revenue, or of waste and extra- 
vagance in its expenditure. But although he 
would not bend any measure out of the strict 
line of rectitude to gain popularity, he was far 
from being indifferent to the good or ill opinion 
of the public ; and that tediousness and repetition 
which his speeches in parliament and his trans- 
actions with men of business were charged with, 
were occasioned by the earnestness of his desire 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



425 



LETTER LIV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Mr Woodfall, t2 April, 1769. 

The monody on the supposed 

to satisfy and convince those he addressed of the 
purity of his motives and the propriety of his 
conduct ; and while there remained a single 
reason in his own mind, that he thought would 
serve those purposes, he could not be content to 
rest upon those he had already adduced, however 
convinced and satisfied his hearers appeared to 
be with them. 

' Inheriting but a small patrimonial fortune, 
he had early accustomed himself to a strict ap- 
propriation of his income, and an exact economy 
in its expenditure, as the only sure ground on 
which to build a reputation for public and private 
integrity, and to support a dignified independ- 
ency ; and it was the unvaried practice of his 
life in all situations, as he has often told me, to 
live upon his own private foftune, and save the 
emoluments of whatever of&i-e he possessed ; on 
which account he added ; " The being' in or out 
makes no difference in my establishment or man- 
ner of life. Every thing goes on at home in the 
same way. The only difference is, that my 
children's fortunes would be increased by my 
being in, beyond what they would be if I re- 
mained out, and that is being as little dependent 
upon office as anjr man who was not born to a 
great estate can possibly be ; " and he manifested 
that independence at a time and in a manner but 
little known, and as the relation can now do no 
harm, I shall repeat the account he gave me of 
it. He had accepted the seals of one of the 
secretaries of state in lord Bute's administration, 
and by so doing drew upon himself the resent- 
ment and abuse of the then popular party, and of 
some of his own nearest relations ; his return, 
therefore, to them, was rendered impracticable 
upon any occasion, and he had every motive to 
induce him to remain with his present connexion. 
Notwithstanding which, he very scon hazarded 
his continuance in office in support of his opinion, 
of what ought to be done for the advantage of 
the public, on the following occasion : 

' While the peace was negotiating, the expe- 
dition against the Havannah was carrying on, 
and as the chance of its success or failure was 
not very unequal, the negotiators agreed to 
leave it out in their nti posi.idetis, considering 
the event as perfectly neutral : so that if, after 
the preliminaries were signed it was found to be 
taken, it was to be restored without compens- 
ation. Before the preliminaries were signed, 
however, the account of its capture was received, 
and Mr Grenville immediately proposed that it 
should now be included in the -nti possidetis, and 
compensation for it insisted upon, for as the 
event was decided before the preliminaries were 
signed, either party was at liberty to avail them- 
selves of it. Lord Bute thought the treaty was 



death of Junius is not the less poetical for 
being founded on a fiction. In some parts 
of it there is a promise of genius which de- 
serves to be encouraged.! My letter of 

too far advanced to make any advantage of the 
event being in our favour, and he feared that 
our making any fresh demand, would not only 
protract but break off the negotiation, and pre- 
vent the peace taking place immediatel}', which 
he thought so necessary for the nation. Mr 
Grenville was clear in his opinion of our right to 
make the demand, and firm in insisting that it 
should be made, and proposed two alternatives 
for consideration. _ The one, that if we judged it 
best to get the entire possession of the continent 
of North America, France having already agreed 
to cede all Canada, that we should insist upon 
Florida and Louisiana : the other, that if we 
thought it necessary to increase our possessions 
in the West Indies, beyond the three neutral 
islands, which France had also agreed to give 
us, we should ask Porto Rico, and the property 
of what we held upon the Spanish main ; and he 
left the earl with declaring that he would resign 
the seals, if oiie^ of those alternatives was not 
adopted and insisted upon. After consulting 
with Mr Fox and lord Egremont, lord Bute 
agreed to make the demand of Florida and 
Louisiana, and instructions to that purpose were 
immediately dispatched to the duke of Bedford, 
who made so able and strenuous an application 
in consequence of them, that the duke de Choiseul 
not only consented to cede Louisiana, but ob- 
liged the Spanish minister to cede Florida also, 
without sending to his court for fresh orders, and 
the preliminaries were not delayed more than a 
fortnight by the demand and acquisition of that 
immense territory.' 

Mr Grenville, shortly previous to his death, 
introduced the act for determining controverted 
elections, from a thorough conviction, as he 
declared to Mr Knox, ' that the ruin of public 
liberty must ensue, unless some check was given 
to the abominable prostitution of the House of 
Commons in elections, by voting in whoever has 
the support of the minister.' The good effects of 
this excellent act is on all sides the theme of 
praise so often as a controversy occasions the 
necessity for an appeal to its decision, the im- 
partiality of which has hitherto never been dis- 
puted. — Edit. 

^ These verses were written by the present sir 
John Macpherson, formerly governor-general of 
India. He was the author of several letters in 
answer to Junius, under the signature of Poe- 
tikastos. The lines here referred to were as fol- 
low. 

A MONODY ; 

OR THE TEARS OF SEDITION ON THE DEATH 
OF JUNIUS. 

Qtiis tibi Sihcre furor ? 
And are those periods fiU'd with tuneful care, 
Those thoughts which gleam'd with Cicero- 
nian ore, 



426 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Monday will, I hope, convince the author 
that I am neither a partisan of Mr Wilkes, 
nor yet bought off by the ministry. ^ It is 
true I have refused offers, which a more 
prudent or a more interested man would 
have accepted. Whether it be simplicity 
or virtue in me I can only affirm that I am 
in earnest;^ because I am convinced, as 
far as my understanding is capable of 
judging, that the present ministry are driv- 
ing this country to destruction ; and you, 
I think, Sir, may be satisfied that my rank 
and fortune place me above a common 
bribe. 

JUNIUS. 

Are they, my Junius, pass'd like vulgar air, 

Droop'd is thy plume, to rise on fame no more ? 
Thy plume ! — it was the harp of song in prose ; 

Oft have its numbers sooth'd the felon's ear, 
Oft to its tune my Wilkite heroes rose 

With couch'd tobacco pipes in act to spear. 
Where now shall stormy Clodius and his crew, 

My dear assembly to the midnight hour, 
Ah ! where acquire a trumpeter ! — since you 

No more shall rouse them with thy classic 
power. 
Accurs'd Silurus ! blasted be thy wing f 

That grey Scotch wing which led the unerring 
dart ! 
In virtue's cause could all that's satire sting 

A bosom with corruption's poison fraught ? 
Impossible !— then hear me, Fiends of H — 11, 

This dark event, this mystery unfold ; 
Poison'd was Junius ? No ; 'Alas, he fell 

'Midst arrows dipp'd in ministerial gold.' 
Then hear me, rioters, of my command, 

Condemn the villain to a traitor's doom ; 
Let none but faithful knaves adorn my band ; 

Go, sink this character into his tomb. 
Here sunk an essayist of dubious name. 

Whose tinsell'd page on airy cadence run. 
Friendless, with party — noted, without fame, 

Virtue and vice disclaim'd him as a son. 

POETIKASTOS. 

Clodius and Silurus, mentioned in the above 
lines, were at this time frequent writers in the 
Public Advertiser ; the former against adminis- 
tration, the latter in favour of it. Silurus, assum- 
ing a personal knowledge of the writer of the 
Letters of Junius, thus describes him. 

' I know Junius, and I am not surprised that 
he calls aloud for blood. Bred among the dregs 
of mankind, he imbibed their vices, and acquired 
that hardness of heart which is usually produced 
by crimes. Possessed of some ambition, versed 
in the low arts of adulation, he wrought himself 
into the confidence of the vain by unmanly flat- 
tery, and rose from obscurity by means which 
dishonoured his patrons. Smooth in his lan- 



LETTER LV. 

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE 
MARQUIS OF GRANBY. 

My Lord, 6 May, 1769. 

You were once the favourite of 
the public. As a brave man you were ad- 
mired by the army, as a generous man you 
were beloved. The scene is altered, and 
even your immediate dependants, who have 
profited most by your good nature, cannot 
conceal from you how much you have lost 
both in the affections of your fellow-soldiers, 
and the esteem of your country. Your 
character, once spotless, once irreproacha- 
ble, has been drawn into a pubhc question ; 
attacked with severity, defended with im- 
prudence, and, hke the seat of war, ruined 
by the contention. Profligate as we are, 
the virtues of the heart are still so much 
respected, that even the errors and sim- 
plicity of a good man are sacred against 
censure or derision. To a man of your 
Lordship's high rank and fortune, is there 



guage, he gained the ear without persuading the 
heart ; and by the help of a good memory, some 
anecdotes, and trite observations, acquired the 
reputation of a genius among some slight cha- 
racters in the literary world. Dark, cunning, 
deceitfully self-denied, he covered himself with 
such an appearance of openness and candour, that 
even some judges of human nature thought him 
honest, many believed him honourable, few sus- 
pected the soundness of his head, none the good- 
ness of his heart. 

' Such was Junius before public business ' 
called forth the latent and deformed features of 
his mind : the real man stood then confessed ; his 
speciousness was foinid to be a mask for hvpo- 
crisy ; his candour a veil for deceit ; his learning 
discovered to be mere plagiarism ; his boasted 
parts to consist altogether in memory. The 
flimsy affected, though unaffecting, superficial- 
ness of his private discourse was soon traced in 
the hollow and round periods of his public de- 
clamations. Detestation took the place of esteem 
in the minds of many, hatred took possession of 
a few, and a contempt for him of all. Detected, 
detested, despised, in his real character, he now 
assumes a Jictitiotis name, for Junius cannot 
deceive, but where he is unknown. 

' 27 March, 1769. _ Silurus.' 

^ The letter here referred to, is that addressed 
to the duke of Grafton, on Mr Weston's supposed 
vindication of his Grace, for the pardon of 
M 'Quirk. See Letter IX.— Edit. 

* See Private Letter, No. 63. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



427 



any thing in the smiles of a court that can 
balance the loss of that affection (for surely 
it was something more cordial than esteem) 
with which you were universally received 
upon your return from Germany ? You 
were then an independent gallant soldier. 
As far as you thought proper to mix in 
politics, you were the friend and patron of 
the people. Believe me, my Lord, the 
highest rate of abilities could never have 
given you a more honourable station. 
From the moment you quitted that line, 
you have perhaps been better able to gratify 
some interested favourites, but you have 
disgraced yourself ; — and, to a man of your 
quality, disgrace is ruin. 

You are now in the lowest rank of minis- 
terial dependants. Your vote is as secure 
to administration as if you were a lord of 
trade, or a vice-treasurer of Ireland, and 
even Conway, at your Lordship's expense, 
has mended his reputation. I will not 
enter into a detail of your past conduct. 
You have enemies enough already, and I 
would not wish you to despair of recovering 
the public esteem. An opportunity will 
soon present itself. The people of England 
are good-natured enough to make allow- 
ances for your mistakes, and to give you 
credit for correcting them. One short 
question will determine your character for 
ever. Does it become the name and dig- 
nity of Manners to place yourself upon a 
level with a venal tribe, who vote as they 
are directed, and to declare upon your 
honour, in the face of your country, that 
Mr Luttrell is, or ought to be, the sitting 
member for the county of Middlesex ?i I 
appeal, bo7ia fide, to your integrity as an 
honest man ; — I even appeal to your under- 
standing. 

YOUR REAL FRIEND. 



^ For an explanation of the subject here 
alluded to, see Private Letter, No. 2. See also 
p. 146, note. — Edit. 

^ Sir William Blackstone. For the detail of 
MacQuirk's crime and pardon, see Letter VIII. 
—Edit. 



LETTER LVI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 yune, 1769. 

I WISH the duke of Grafton had 
thought proper to take the opinion of our 
gracious Queen's sohcitor-general 2 before 
he pardoned MacQuirk. That worthy 
lawyer is never at cross-purposes with him- 
self, and I dare say would have maintained^ 
the same doctrine in his closet, which he 
has delivered for the instruction of the pub- 
lic. He says in his last volume, page 12, 
' that the pains of death ought never to be 
inflicted, but when the offender appears 
incorrigible : which may be collected either 
from a repetition of minuter offences, or 
from the perpetration of some one crime of 
deep malignity, which of itself demonstrates 
a disposition without hope or probability of 
amendment ; and in such cases it would be 
cruelty to the public to defer the punish- 
ment of such a criminal, till he had an 
opportunity of repeating perhaps the worst 
of villanies.' 

What would this most respectable of all 
possible lawyers have thought of granting a 
pardon to a culprit, who had not only been 
convicted of a repetition of offences, and 
those not minute but atrocious, but who 
had actually committed murder? fie cer- 
tainly would have called it something more 
than cruelty to the public. His knowledge 
of the laws would have told him. that the 
purpose for which this villain was employed 
by the ministry, was treason against the 
constitution ; 3— that it was the highest ag- 
gravation of the crimes he committed in 
prosecution of it ;-— that murder, simply 
considered, is only an injury to the indi- 
vidual who suffers ; or in the most enlarged 
sense, to society, in the loss of one of its 
members ;— but that when it is connected 
with, and founded on, the idea of destroy- 
ing the constimtion of the state (which, as 



3 In reference to sir W. Blackstone's opinion 
relating to the Middlesex election. See Letter 
XVIIl.— Edit. 



428 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



far as Mr MacQuirk's labours could be 
supposed to operate, was certainly the case), 
it then comprehends every quality, which 
can make an offence of this sort criminal in 
the eye of the law ; — the injury to the in- 
dividual ; — a breach of the public peace 
and security in a civil light ; — and a viola- 
tion of that political system, on which the 
liberty and happiness of the community de- 
pend. Mr Blackstone would have told the 
fiery duke, that to pardon such an offender 
would not only be a most scandalous 
evasion of law and justice, but the grossest 
insult to the common understanding of the 
nation. 

His Grace must then have applied to 
some lawyer of a more flexible character. 
There is a man, for instance, who seems to 
have hoarded up a treasure of reputation, 
not to last him through life, but to squan- 
der away at one moment, with a foolish 
indecent prodigality ; — who is not ashamed 
to maintain an oral doctrine directly op- 
posite to that which he had written, nor to 
deceive the representative, after instructing 
the collective body of the nation. This 
man would willingly have accommodated 
his authority to the purposes of administra- 
tion ; and as for himself, he could suffer 
no loss, for which the vanity of an author 
would not have sufficiently consoled him. 
The respect due to his writings will pro- 
bably increase with the contempt due to his 
character, and his works will be quoted, 
when he himself is forgotten or despised. 
SIMPLEX. 



LETTER LVII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, io June, 1769. 

I AM an old reader of political 
controversy. I remember the great Wal- 

JUNius's charges. 
First fact. 
That lord Chatham was the first object 
of the duke of Grafton's political attach- 



polean battles ; and am not a little diverted 
with the combats of party at this time. 
They are still carried on with ability and 
vigour. Long habit has taught me to pass 
by all the declamation with which the 
champions parade. I look upon it as no 
better than those flourishes of the back 
sword with which the great masters of my 
time in the amphitheatre entertained the 
spectators, m.erely to show their dexterity, 
but which made no part of the real engage- 
ment. I regard as nothing the trappings of 
panegyric with which they decorate their 
friends. I entirely overlook the dirt with 
which they so very liberally bespatter their 
enemies. Whenever ^.fact is touched upon, 
there I fix. When a distinct charge is 
made upon a minister, I look for a distinct 
and particular answer, that denies, or 
admitting, explains, or in some favourable 
manner accouiits for Xh^fact charged. If 
instead of this I find nothing more than a 
long paper, in which the author of the 
charge is called a thousand names, and the 
person accused is lifted up to the skies as a 
miracle of ability and virtue, I am obliged, 
as an equitable judge, to consider the cause 
not as defended, but as utterly abandoned ; 
and the court must enter an admission by 
his own advocates of the charge against 
him. 

The conduct and character of the duke 
of Grafton have been for some time the 
object of controversy. In what manner 
ha\e they been attacked and defended ? 
Take as a specimen the controversy of the 
last week. Junius, whom the ministerial 
writers appear very much to dread, and 
affect very much to despise, has made se- 
veral particular charges upon his Grace. In 
one column I will state the charges, in the 
other the reader will see the answers, and 
he will thereby be the better enabled to 
judge of the spirit in which this dispute is 
carried on. 



Ayiszver. 
The wicked for the sake of mischief ap- 
prove of your bold falsehoods, and the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



429 



ment ; yet he deserted him, and entered 
with lord Rockingham into an administra- 
tion in which lord Chatham refused to 
engage. 

Second fact. 
After uniting with lord Rockingham, the 
duke of Grafton deserted and betrayed 
him. 



Third fact. 
That, after entering again into adminis- 
tration with lord Chatham, the duke of 
Grafton forced him (lord Chatham) to with- 
draw his name from it. 

Fotirthfact. 
That the duke of Grafton is chargeable 
with great inconsistencies with himself in 
the frequent variations in his opinions and 
conduct with regard to America, according 
to the various changes he has made in his 
connexions. 



Fifth fact. 
The duke of Grafton had been the friend 
of Mr Wilkes, and is become his persecutor. 



The above charges are, with several 
others, to be found in the last letter of Ju- 
nius. The ministerial advocate, Aiiti 
Malagrida} has since addressed a letter to 
him, in which the above paragraphs, in the 
second column, are the only answers which 
I could discover. The same charges had 
been made by Junius and others several 
times before. Always the same reply. Ju- 
nius and many others say (and I fancy 
they speak the sense of the nation), that the 
duke of Grafton imposes upon his sovereign, 
betrays his connexions, persecutes the man 
who was his friend, idly irritates the colo- 
nies, wickedly alienates their affections from 



^ A writer in the Public Advertiser in favour 
of administration, but whose letters do not appear 



envious love a strain of defamation, which 
brings down to their own mean level the 
most worthy and most exalted characters in 
the nation. 

Answer. 

To retaliate upon you the abuse which 
you have presumed to throw upon the duke 
of Grafton would be raising you into a con- 
sequence, to which the meanness of your 
birth, the depravity of your heart, and the 
unsoundness of your head, can never have 
any title. 

A iiswer. 

By specious conversation you imposed 
upon the weak, by open and impudent 
flattery you gained the confidence of the 
vain, and you won the favour of the proud 
by mean unmanly sycophancy. 
Ans'cuer. 

Void as you are of every sense of shame, 
can you without a blush (but a blush sel- 
dom tinges those happy countenances 
which have been bathed in the Liffy), can 
you recommend to the people of England, 
as ministers, men, whose weakness or 
villany they have already experienced in 
office? 

Answer. 

The abihties, the integrity, the dignity of 
mind, as well as the nobihty of family which 
distinguish the duke of Grafton, have ren- 
dered him superior to your abuse. 

their mother country, invades the liberties 
of the people, abuses the prerogative of the 
crown, and has actually subverted the con- 
stitution : and when Junius civilly asks the 
reason of all this— Sir (says he), you are a 
rascal. 

Now, Mr Woodfall, I shall make but one 
reflection, and that I shall borrow from sir 
John Brute : — ' This may be a very good 
answer for aught I know at cross-purposes, 
but it is a damned whimsical one to a 
people in our circumstances.' 
Yours, &c. 
AMICUS CURI^. 



to have merit enough to entitle them to be re- 
printed. — Edit. 



43° 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER LVIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Mr Woodfall, 5 September, 1769. 

Amidst the great number of cor- 
respondents who have raised your paper 
to a superiority over the rest, I don't re- 
member to have observed lately any of the 
female sex. To a woman of spirit, the most 
intolerable of all grievances is a restraint on 
the liberty of the tongue. I can't bear to 
see the men have it all to themselves ; and 
shall certainly burst if I am not permitted 
to put in a word. Much has been said of 
late about grievances and apprehensions, 
instructions and petitions, elections and 
expulsions. Now, Sir, I want to enter the 
list with one of the most celebrated of your 
political correspondents : here I throw 
down my glove, and am in hopes it will be 
taken up by— Junius. Some people per- 
haps may blame me for meddling with 
politics, a science fit only for the men ; but 
Junius has no right to find fault, for Ju- 
nius has been the aggressor, by making 
such frequent incursions into SCANDAL, 
the natural province of the women . 

However, I will do your correspondent 
Junius the justice to say, that I think him 
a very fine writer, a great master of com- 
position, and indeed, upon the whole, I 
have not seen a pi-ettier fellow — upon paper. 
His former letters have consisted of general 
declamation or pointed personal abuse. In 
both of these he has proved himself an 
adept. There is a great deal of oratory in 
his declamations, though he is perhaps too 
flowery and metaphorical, and seems as 
fond of point and antithesis as any woman 
is of point lace and French silk. As to his 
personal attacks, they are irresistible ; no 
character can stand before him ; — he is the 
very butcher of a reputation. ' Heaven 
preserve the characters of all 7ny tribe from 
Junius ! ' In the art of exaggeration he 
has no equal ; molehills he magnifies into 
mountains, and views your smallest pecca- 
dtUo through a double miwoscope. Should 



there be the least spot or speck on your 
reputation, Junius can spread it out (with 
the help of a few drops of ink) till it covers 
you all over, and makes you as black as a 
fiend ; in short Junius is chief japanner or 
calumniator-general to the opposition : he 
is employed to besmear the ministry with 
his very best liquid blacking, and when he 
has written them out of otfice, he will no 
doubt change his colours, take a different 
brush, and white-wash their successors. I 
wish he may make as distinguished a figure 
in the sweet work of panegyric as he has 
done in the painful task of calumny and 
detraction ! 

But of all kinds of abuse, private SCAN- 
DAL seems to be his favotirite morsel ; 
Junius lays hold of a scandalous anecdote 
with as much keenness as a spider seizes an 
unfortunate fly ; he crawls forth from the 
dark hole where he lay concealed ; how 
eagerly he clutches it ; with what a mali- 
cious pleasure he drags it along ; his eyes 
gloat upon it with cruel delight ; he winds 
it round and round with his cobxveb rhe- 
toric, and sucks the very heart's blood of 
family peace ! 

Various have been the conjectures formed 
on the question — ' Who is this Junius ? ' I 
have heard at least twenty persons named 
whom suspicion points the finger at ; nay, 
I have been assured at diffe*-ent times that 
each of them was the author in question. 
They could not all be the writer ; perhaps 
none of them is.— But in spite of all the 
curiosity which is imputed to our sex, I de- 
clare sincerely, that I would not give a pin 
for the secret. 'Tis indifferent to me who 
the man is; and whether he was first dipped 
in the Thames or the Tweed, the Liffy or 
the Shannon. 

But though I can't tell who Junius is, I 
will tell you what he is like. Junius is like 
a racer in the field of politics, who walks 
over the course alone ; no one venturing to 
start against him. I have for some time 
had a violent inclination to enter at the post, 
although I am sensible the odds at starting 
would be greatly against the filly ; but for 
all that, perhaps, I should be up with him 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



431 



at the long run. But I have run out my 
simile, and therefore must beg leave to take 
a fresh one. Your paper, ISIr Woodfall, is 
become the grand political cockpit, and 
Junius struts about in it like a cock whom 
nobody can match ; suppose that I were 
pitted against him ; how do you think the 
bets would go ? And what are the odds 
that he does not come off hen-pecked ? 
If I should happen to get the better of him, 
it will be as much a matter of public won- 
der as the late affair of the hen in Scotland- 
yard, who • attacked a prodigious large rat 
that was carrying off one of her chickens, 
and after fighting a considerable time, 
killed the rat, to the great joy and surprise 
of the spectators.' And besides how great 
will be the honour accruing to our sex from 
such a victory ! It will be recorded amongst 
the most famous exploits in the annals of 
female prowess ; and I shall be ranked with 
the most renowned heroines of antiquity, 
Thomyris and Semiramis, Judith and 
Deborah . 

But perhaps the defeat of this political 
Holofernes may not be so very difificult ; 
and indeed on a nearer view he does not 
appear half so formidable. When Junius 
stalked upon the heights of declamation, 
he appeared of more than ordinary size, 
but now that he has descended to iYiQplai?i 
ground of reason and argument, he appears 
nearly on a level with common men. His 
letters on the Middlesex election are most 
sophistically dull, unless where he throws 
in some personalities by way of givdng 
spirit and flavour to his political olio. How- 
ever, I don't believe that with all his soph- 
istry he has made a single convert to his 
opinion. I fancy there is hardly one cool, 
moderate, impartial person in England who 
does not think that the House of Commons 
are the only judges of their own privileges ; 
that no power on earth can force a member 
upon them, whom they have declared in- 
capable of being elected ; and that if any 
person under such known and declared in- 
capacity happens to have the greatest num- 
ber of votes, the candidate who has the 
next greatest number of legal votes must 



of course be the sitting member. This 
opinion seems to me to be perfectly agree- 
able to reason, to common sense, and the 
principles of the constitution, and (notwith- 
standing the delusive appearance of peti- 
tions obtained we all know how) I do verily 
beheve it is the opinion of every candid, 
impartial, unprejudiced person in England ; 
in short, of all those who are not the tools 
0/ faction, or the dupes of party. 
I am. Sir, 

Your humble servant, 

JUNIA.i 



LETTER LIX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 7 September, 1769. 

I find myself unexpectedly mar- 
ried in the newspapers, without my know- 
ledge or consent. Smce I am fated to be 
a husband, I hope at least the lady will 
perform the principal duty of a wife. Mar- 
riages, they say, are made in heaven, but 
they are consummated upon earth, and 
since Junia has adopted my name, she 
cannot, in common matrimonial decency, 
refuse to make me a tender of her person. 
Politics are too barren a subject for a new- 
married couple. I should be glad to fur- 
nish her with one more fit for a lady to 
handle, and better suited to the natural 
dexterity of her sex. In short, if Junia 
be young and handsome, she will have no 
reason to complain of my method of con- 
ducting an argument. I abominate all 
tergiversation in discourse, and she may be 
assured that whatever I advance, whether 
it be weak or forcible, shall, at any rate, be 
directly in point. It is true I am a strenu- 
ous advocate for liberty and property, but 
when these rights are invaded by a pretty 
woman, I am neither able to defend my 
money nor my freedom. The divine right 
of beauty is the only one an Enghshman 



'^ This letter was claimed, as the production 
of his own pen, by the late Mr Caleb Whitefoord. 
—Edit. 



432 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ought to acknowledge, and a pretty 'woman 
the only tyrant he is not authorized to re- 
sist. 

JUNIUS.i 



LETTER LX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Mr Woodfall, 8 Sept. I'jSg. 

It is hard to determine whether 
the actions of the present ministry more 
excite abhorrence and indignation, or the 
writings of their advocates contempt and 
ridicule : every action of the former is an 
invasion of our liberty or our property ; 
every line wrote in their defence by the 
latter is an insult to our understanding, 
and a base mockery of our sufferings. I 
have never yet known a bad cause made 
better by a bad defence. I cannot conceive 
what induces his Grace of Grafton to 
employ such a set of wretches to laugh at 
us, whilst we are burning at the stake to 
which he has tied us. It is as void of 
policy as it is full of inhumanity. Oppres- 
sion is more easily borne than insult ; and 
the duke of Grafton, with his now directors, 
the Bloom sbury gang, may find that it is 
dangerous to despise those whom he has 
deeply injured. Why does he let loose 
upon us his troops of fools and madmen, 
and buffoons and bullies? He would do 
more wisely to employ them in their proper 
places, reserving them to excite the mirth, 
and add to the wit, urbanity, and elegance 
of the midnight festivity of his kindred and 



^ Junius repented that he had written this 
letter as soon as it had appeared. He regarded 
it as idle and improper ; and it was on this 
occasion that he addressed to Mr Woodfall the 
private note, No. 8, dated lo Sept. 1769; in 
consequence of which the following observation 
appeared in the notice to correspondents in the 
Public Advertiser of 11 Sept. 

' We have some reason to suspect that the last 
letter signed Junius, inserted in this paper of 
Thursday last, was not written by the real 
Junius, though we imagine it, to have been sent 
by some one of his waggish friends, who has 
taken great pains to write in a manner similar to 
that of Junius, which observation escaped us at 



friends, Weymouth, Gower, and Rigby, at 
Bedford-house. 

If the freeholders of this country, alarmed 
at the invasion of their last and dearest 
right, the freedom of election, beg in the 
humblest terms for redress, Poetikastos 
dances before them in a fool's coat, squirts 
dirty water in their faces, and then cries out 
to the great joy, and with the loud applause 
of the g an a-, — 'You are redressed,' To 
every other complaint, whether of the dis- 
graces which we suffer abroad, or of the 
oppressions which we feel at home ; whe- 
ther the cry be for property ravished from 
us, for our hberties infringed, for the laws 
perverted, for the constitution overturned, 
we have much the same answer. Silurus 
is let loose from his cell to vent his mad- 
ness, and cover us with his filth. — Pericles 2 
stands by him calling out rogue and scoun- 
drel ; and then with one voice the minister 
who employs, and the wretches who are 
employed, cry out, — 'We have defeated 
them ; they never dare appear again ; we 
have hanged them up to public scorn : you 
are a coward, cries one ; I will cudgel you, 
says another ; I will lay you a bet of 14,000 
guineas, bawls a third.' ^ 

Does the duke of Grafton really think 
that such actions as his are sufficiently 
defended by such arguments as these ? Are 
those the lawyers whom he has retained 
against that dreadful day — for that day will 
come — when a brave, a haughty, and a 
spirited, though patient, people, shall de- 
mand vengeance on his head for all the dis- 
graces and injuries which he has heaped 



that time. The printer takes the liberty to hint 
that it will not do a second time.' — Edit. 

^ Poetikastos, Sibirics, and Pericles were 
writers in the Public Advertiser in favour of ad- 
ministration. — Edit. 

3 A challenge had been absurdly given to 
Junius by several writers in the Public Ad- 
vertiser, as well as by sir William Draper ; and 
one correspondent, as here referred to, had the 
egregious folly to propose a bet of 14,000 
guineas, being, as he stated, his whole fortune, 
' that he could produce in six months a counter- 
petition, signed by 4,000 freeholders, all meit of 
sense, begging his Majesty to confine the ring- 
leaders of the opposition, and bind them over to 
their good behaviour.' — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



433 



upon theirs? Are these to be his intercess- 
ors to a misguided and betrayed king for 
mercy ? Enjoy with your associates, my 
Lord, their buffoonery and their scurriUty 
whilst you may : the day is not far off — if 
the Almighty has not in his wrath given up 
this country to that worst of punishments, 
that most intolerable of all tyrannies, the 
government of insolence without spirit, 
violence without vigour, ambition without 
dignity, obstinacy without resolution, and 
ignorance without diffidence — the day is not 
far off, when these insults will be retorted 
most severely, and humanity itself will not 
be able to keep them from your head, though 
that head should be on the block. 

AUGUR. 



LETTER LXI. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.^ 

My Lord, id November^ 1769. 

The facility with which you aban- 
doned your earhest connexions in friend- 
ship and pohtics, was, I doubt not, a lead- 
ing recommendation to establish your 
credit at St James's. A gracious discern- 
ing prince, who, even at the moment of his 
accession, had fortitude enough to get the 
better of every predilection which he might 
be supposed to have inherited from his 
ancestors in favour of the friends of the 
House of Hanover, must have observed with 
pleasure that your Grace was equally ready 
to desert the friends who contributed most 
to your advancement, and to adopt new 
principles of government. I will not com- 
plain of a cliange of system, for which you 
had so powerful a precedent, and which you 
have found so favourable to your ambition. 
But there are rules of decency, my Lord, 



This letter was printed by the desire of written by the author of Junius.' — Edit 



which a wiser man would have observed 
even in the grossest violation of morals. 
There is a certain sort of hostihties which 
is forbidden by the laws of war between 
nations, and by the laws of enmity between 
individuals. The contentions of party have 
given a fashionable latitude to the principles 
of modern morality ; but still, my Lord, 
there are some characters too great and 
venerable to be insulted ; there is yet a 
certain breach of decorum, which the pubhc 
will not submit to. Was the duke of Rut- 
land the only man in this country at whose 
expense you could gratify lord Denbigh ? 
One would think, my Lord, that if his uni- 
form adherence to the principles of the 
revolution, his steady attachment to the 
House of Hanover, and the important serv- 
ices which he and his family had rendered 
to that House, could possibly be forgotten, 
there was yet something in his age, his 
rank, his personal character, and private 
virtues, which might have entitled him to 
respect. Was it necessary, my Lord, to 
pursue him into his own county on purpose 
to insult him ? Was it proper, was it 
decent, that while a duke of Rutland is lord- 
heutenant, the earl of Denbigh's recom- 
mendation should govern the county of 
Leicester ? 2 Had lord Denbigh no friends 
in Leicestershire but rank Tories to recom- 
mend for the commission of the peace ? 
And is it under a prince, who owes his 
crown to the Whig interest of England, that 
a minister dares to send such a mandate to 
the duke of Rutland ? I know his Grace's 
spirit, and doubt not of his returning you 
an answer proper for you and for himself. 

United as you are, my Lord, with men 
whose concern for the safety of the church, 
and whose zeal for the prerogative of the 
crown, has been so often unluckily mistaken 



Junius in the Public Advertiser, but w;is not 
written by him. See Private Letter, No. ii- 
It was, however, so generally supposed to have 
been his, that Junius himself thought it neces- 
.sary to request the printer to publish the follow- 
ing contradiction in the same journal, Nov. 17, 



^ It refers to certain justices of the peace 
having been made at the request of lord Den- 
bigh, by a commission of the lord chancellor 
(Camden), and others, for the county of Lei- 
cester, \\-itliout consulting the duke of Rutland, 
who was lord-lieutenant, and who, ex officio, 



We can assure the public that the letter signed ought to have been honoured with the nomina- 



A. B., relative to the duke of Rutland, is not lion. — Edit. 



28 



434 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



for simple jacobitism, I take for granted 
you are as well acquainted with their his- 
tory as with their principles. You are able 
to tell us, and surely the pubHc has a right 
to expect it from you, by what species of 
merit the earl of Denbigh has contrived to 
make himself so distinguished a favourite 
at court. Was it the notorious attachment 
of his family to the House of Hanover, or 
his own personal accomplishments ? Was 
it his fortune that made him respectable, 
or his beggary that made him submissive? 
Was it the generous exertion of his great 
abihtles in parliament, or the humble assi- 
duity of his attendance at lord Bute's levee ? 
Was it the manly firmness of his personal 
appearance, or the pliant politeness of his 
temper? Was it the independent dignity 
with which he maintains the rank of a 
peer, or the complaisance with which he 
accepts and executes the honourable office 
of a spy ? Whatever have been his merits 
or services, they are undoubtedly of a com- 
plexion very different from those of the 
duke of Rutland. 

His Grace has now wisely exchanged that 
busy scene, in which he never appeared but 
with honour, for an hospitable retirement. 
His age will not permit us to hope that he 
can long be the object of the spite of such 
a creature as lord Denbigh, nor of the scorn 
and insult of such a minister as your Grace. 
But he will leave a family, my Lord, whose 
principles of freedom are hereditary, from 
whose resentment you will have every thing 
to apprehend. As for himself, I shall only 
say, that if it were possible for the views 
and wishes of the Tories to succeed ; if it 
were possible for them to place a Stuart 
once more upon the throne, their warmest 
hopes and ambition might be disappointed. 
He too, like another judicious prince, might 
think it the best policy of his government 
to choose his friends and favourites from 
among the declared, notorious, determined 
enemies of his family. The Tories who 



^ The above letter, though avowedly not from 
the pen of Junius, was reprinted in the Public 
Advertiser from another journal at his request. 
It was replied to a few days afterwards by the 



placed him vipon the throne, might be 
driven disgracefully from his presence ; 
and, iipon the same principle, I challenge 
your Grace to point out a man more likely 
to be invited to the place of first minister 
and favourite, than the duke of Rutland. 

A. B.i 



LETTER LXn. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 November^ 1769. 

Junius may change his signature, 
his manner he cannot chang^e. The far- 
fetched antithesis, the empty period, the 
pert loquacity distinguish the writer ; and 
the rancorous and impudent falsehood dis- 
covers the man. In vain has he attempted 
to conceal himself under initials ; he is as 
invariable in the tenor of his diction as he 
is in the bias of his mind. 

It was, however, a mark of some judg- 
ment in Mr to use a new signature in 

your paper of Friday. A. B. may praise 
the duke of Rutland, though Junius has 
infamously traduced the marquis of Gran- 
by.2 By a mean subterfuge, an appearance 
of propriety may be preserved among the 
superficial ; but the generous and discern- 
ing must despise and detest a man who 
makes the interest of a profligate party the 
only standard by which he regulates his 
encomium as well as his abuse. 

But to set the public right in a matter of 
fact is the only design of this letter. The 
insertion of particular persons by mandate, 
without issuing a new commission of the 
peace, has been in daily practice ; and is 
an undoubted power lodged in the great 
seal ; but in that alone ; nor can any other 
servant of the crown interfere no more than 
in a decree of that great officer, the chan- 
cellor in the Court of Chancery. 

The principles of that noble Lord are as 



letter that follows it ; to withhold which would 
be an act of injustice. — Edit. 

' The marquis of Granby, eldest son of the 
duke of Rutland. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



435 



well known as those of the remainder of 
the king's ministers, who, notwithstanding 
every aspersion to the contrary from factious 
artifices, have on every occasion proved 
themselves to be the supporters of the real 
liberty of the people, and of the true spirit 
of the constitution. 

Has the lord chancellor in any instance 
deviated from such a character? And yet 
if Junius, or his shadow A. B., were right, 
this noble lord would be termed a Jacobite : 
for if there is any thing improper in the ap- 
pointment, he is the man who should be 
charged, and not the duke of Grafton, on 
whom calumny endeavours to fix the mis- 
takes of others. 

Junius, in his zeal for his party, defeats 
the means he uses to serve them. Un- 
fortunately for his cause, the attacks he 
makes upon, and his charges against, the 
duke of Grafton, require only to be fairly 
stated to confute themselves ; and thus (I 
will do him the justice to suppose), without 
design he becomes the panegyrist of a cha- 



^ To this letter A . B. o;ave an answer, but as 
it decidedly was not written by Junius, we have 
omitted it. — Edit. 

^ Mr Onslow was at this time persecuting 
Wilkes with all the acrimony in his power, in 
unison with the duke of Grafton, both of whom 
had a few years before professed the warmest 
friendship for Wilkes. Mr Home, not then at 
enmitj- with Wilkes, had just published the fol- 
lowing letter of a similar kind, of which Wilkes 
had given him a copy : 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 

ADVERTISER. 
Sir, 14 July, 1769. 

Many of j'our readers having seen an 
abuse on j\Ir Home, for the publication of a 
letter from Mr Onslow to Mr Wilkes, are de- 
sirous of seeing that original. 

COPY OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE OXSLOW, 
ESQ. TO JOHN V\-ILKES, ESQ. 

Eviber Court, 21 SeJ>tember, 1765. 
My Dear Old Friend, 

Having been most shamefully silent to 
you during the remainder of an opposition which 
did honour to every man concerned in it, and to 
the credit of which you so much contributed, I 
now begin my correspondence with you, at my 
first entering into office with, and under, an ad- 
ministration, whose principles, I hope and be- 
lie%'e, will authorize your giving equal support 
to, in their very different situation. If they did 
not, as I know they do, revere and hold sacred 



racter he wishes to ruin in the eyes of tlie 
world. 

I am, Sir, 

Your humble servant, 

MESSALA.i 



LETTER LXIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 November, 1769. 

I WILL not pretend to say that 
the inclosed letter is a very severe libel on 
its right honourable author ! And yet, Mr 
Woodfall, you may safely print it ; for 
though we have laws against self-murder, 
there are none against self-libelling. 

A curious collection of correspondence, 
both political and amorous, has lately fallen 
into my hands, with which I shall from time 
to time furnish you, reserving the most ex- 
traordinary of both kinds till the last, pour 
la bonne bouche. 

X. X.2 



those sentim_ents they avowed during the two 
last years, and in abhorrence those vile and 
detestable ones of persecution and injustice, by 
which the public were so injured in your person, 
I should be ashamed of v/hat I am now proud of 
— bearing the small share I do among them. — 
Public marks of this, as well as private ones, I 
hope vvill soon take place. 

Honest Humphrey has dined with me here 
to-day, and we have just drank j'our health, as 
we have often done. Honest as he is, I never 
felt him more so than your last letter to him, 
which he has just now showed me, has made 
him appear to me, in having done justice to my 
very sincere and constant regards to, and ad- 
miration of, you. Every word of this letter of 
yours ;dated the 26 Aug. from Geneva) I sub- 
scribe to, and think and persuade myself the 
completion of our patriot, not selfish, wishes (for 
such they are not' will soon appear among many 
other proofs of integrity, steadiness, and virtue, 
in the present ministry, and of their being as 
inimical as ever to those whom they have been 
opposing, for having acted contrary to all these 
principles. 

Vour friend, Mrs Onslow, has been enjoj'ing 
with us, in infinite mirth, your last specimens of 
notes on differentparts of great Churchill's works, 
viz. Hogarth, Taloot, and the scoundrel Bishop. 
Thej^ are specimens indeed of your amazing wit 
and abiliiies ; and when he has more of them he 
has promised me a copy. 

Believe me, my dear John, your mentioning 
me as you do gratifies my pride, as it will always 



436 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



My Dear Wilkes, 

I AM very sorry to have been pre- 
vented seeing you to-day ; but I hope to 
have a good account of you by the return 
of my servant who brings you this : perhaps 
you may be better if more of your friends 
besides myself have missed troubling you 
to-day ; as I'm sure quiet and keeping 
down your wonderful flow of spirits must 
do you good. To most men in your situa- 
tion such a caution would surely be need- 
less, because men of less greatness of mind, 
and of a less noble spirit than yourself, 
would yield to such a load of damnable 
persecution, from the most dangerous ad- 
ministration that ever was in this country. 
But honest men like yourself know how to 
despise it and them, and to rise superior to 
them all. 

If I had a mind to raise your indignation, 
I would bid you think of the similarity of 
these times to those you and I have talked 
of with abhorrence ; but as I mean always 
to add to your comfort and satisfaction, I 
will desire you to think of the similarity of 
your own circumstances to those of the 
many great and good men that lived in 
those times, and suffered as you do now. 
Remember how greatly they were thought 
of, and how their characters are respected 
now, and remember, and be assured to 
your comfort, that let the iron hand of 
power fall ever so heavy on you (it can't 
fall very heavy from your innocence) every 
honest man, and every gentleman, must 
bestow the same degree of applause on you 
as they must of abhorrence and detestation, 
on your and their country's enemies. I 
will certainly call on you to-morrow morn- 
ing or evening. I have nothing new to 



send you. I hope it is not so to you that I 
am unalterably, 

Dear Wilkes, 
Your faithful and affectionate 
Curzon-st., Mofiday ?itght, humble servant, 
21 Nov. 1763. GEORGE ONSLOW. 

Mrs Onslow sends you her comps. I 
wish you would appoint honest, faithful 
Humphrey to meet me at your house pre- 
cisely at one o'clock on Wednesday. I 
have a thousand things to say to him. 



do to show myself your friend and humble serv- 
ant. I was always so as a public and as a 
private man. Our good friend Humphrey and 
I are at this moment in your service, and from 
us both you shall soon hear, particularly as to 
the contents of your letter of the 26th. I beg 
you to believe that I most truly and affection- 
ately am your faithful, humble servant, 

Geo. Onslow. 

Postscript. Postpone your judgment till you 
hear again from me, on what I lament as much 



LETTER LXIV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 20 Nov. 1769. 

I CANNOT but admire the easy as- 
surance with which that modest gentleman,^ 
who writes for the Gazetteer, informs us that 
he has gained a complete victory over 
Junius. It is not the first time that the 
silence and moderation of Junius have been 
mistaken for submission, nor is this the first 
blockhead who has plumed himself upon 
an imaginary triumph over the favourite of 
the pubhc— I wish, however, if he be in 
the secret, that he would tell us plainly 
whether the officers of the guards are to be 
tried or not ? If they are not, the observa- 
tions, made by Junius upon the conduct 
of the ministry, return with double force. 
If they are, Junius is right, and acts hon- 
ourably in not pushing his inquiries further. 1 
As to the facts, it is unnecessary for him to 
say any thing in support of them. They 
are so notorious, that the parties themselves 
cannot, dare not deny them. If captain 
Garth did not wilfully abandon his guard, 
' why does he not demand a court-martial 

I !_. ^ T 

! as you can do, and think of as you do— Mr Pitt 
and lord Temple's being not in employment.— 
Edit. 

^ Junius, in Private Letter, No. 11, assigns 
the following reason for thus declining it : ' The 
only thing that hinders my pushing the subject 
of my last letter, is really the fear of ruining 
that poor devil Gansel, and those other block- 
heads.'— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



437 



to clear his character ? And would not the 
ministry, for their own credit, take care 
that captain Dodd should be brought to a 
trial if they were not absolutely certain that 
a court-martial must cashier them ? Truly, 
Sir, these gentlemen have a bitter enemy in 
Modesius?- It appears to me that he has 
some secret rancour against them, which 
nothing can satisfy but the loss of their 
commissions. 

X. X. 



LETTER LXV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 23 Nov. 1769. 

Junius and his journeymen have 
engrossed the whole alphabet ; but from 
A. B. to X. X. the style and manner of the 
shop are easily discovered. From alpha to 
omega, the same attention to a period, and 
the same neglect of good sense, manners, 
and propriety. However, Mr X. X. in to- 
day's Public Advertiser has even out- 
Heroded Herod. It was certainly un- 
pardonable presumption in the modest 
gentleman who writes for the Gazetteer to 
assume the merit of a victory over the 
young gentleman who writes for the Public 
Advertiser. But Te Deums have been sung 
before on as slender foundations. The 
young gentleman, with that fire and spirit 
which accompanies green years, threw down 
his glove to the world, and challenged all 
mankind to contradict the truth of certain 
facts, or the justice of certain observations. 
He proposed, if not a reward to the cham- 
pion who should vanquish him, at least a 
punishment to himself if vanquished , nor 
that a slight one, if he were, as X. X. says 
he is, the favourite of the public. The 
modest gentleman ventured to take up the 
glove, and with a boldness not very con- 
sistent with his name, demonstrated that 
the narrative was false in every circum- 
stance material to the question ; and the 

■^ Modeshis, as before observed, was a Mr 
Dalrymple, a Scotch lawyer. — Edit. 



observations not only ridiculous in the view 
of supporting the conclusion attempted to 
be drawn, but in a supreme degree injudi- 
cious to the cause they were intended to 
promote. 

To this Junius, with prudence beyond 
his years, makes no reply, and Modesius, 
after a decent forbearance, presumes to 
put him in mind of his challenge. This 
produced the letter signed Junius, in your 
paper one day last week ; in which, to 
speak negatively, he neither supports the 
truth of his narrative, nor the justice of his 
observations, and in which, to speak posi- 
tively, he gives up both. Not fairly, nor 
with the candour of a gentleman, who is 
convinced of his rash and dangerous mis- 
take ; but with the struggles and evasions 
of a culprit who is convicted of a crime. 

Upon this true state of the dispute, Ad^o- 
destus most impudently assumed to himself 
the victory ; and I must confess he seemed 
to have the appearance of a claim to it. 
But Mr X. X. has clearly demonstrated 
the contrary ; and the method this honour- 
able gentleman has taken to chain victory 
to the triumphant car of the public's fa- 
vourite adds greatly to his merit. 

A person of vulgar understanding would 
have descended into a tedious detail ; he 
would have endeavoured to show by argu- 
ment and fact that Junius was in the right, 
and Modesius in the wrong. But Air X. 
X., another Alexander, cuts the Gordian 
knot at once, and annihilates the preten- 
sions of Modesius with a single word. 
There is so much energy, so much elo- 
quence, so much of the polite scholar, the 
gentleman, and the patriot, in the term 
blockhead, that if Modesties possesses but a 
shadow of what its name imports, he must 
fairly confess himself routed ; and instead 
of Te Deum, I would advise him to sing 
De profundis. 

It was to be sure the height of insolence 
in Modesius to attack the favourite of the 
public; but it maybe pleaded in his excuse, 
that the public has several favourites who 
are shrewdly suspected to be unworthy of 
its favour ; and Junius has staked and 



438 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



forfeited that favour of which he had much 
reason to be proud. But pray, Mr X. X., 
have not you been guilty of a trifling error, 
by substituting the public in place of the 
mob ? You wish to know whether the 
officers are to be tried or not. For answer 
give me leave to ask you whether you have 
learned to read ? Had that essential part 
of your education been attended to, you 
would not have been so ignorant of what 
has been explained again and again, and 
you would not have been so iUiberal to 
imagine you could better a bad cause by 
calling names; an argument which deserves 
no answer but the strapado. 

But your education did not depend on 
yourself, and perhaps you are left-handed, 
which I have been told by many intelligent 
Hibernians, your countrymen, is an insur- 
mountable bar to scholarship ; yet common 
sense is the portion of the unlearned as well 
as of the learned, and though you may be 
but an indifferent scholar, there was no oc- 
casion to insult her in the way you have 
done. The world hitherto has believed that 
Junius was rather unfriendly to the officers 
concerned in general Gansel's rescue, when 
he publicly aggravated their offence from a 
common breach of the peace to an outrage 
against the constitution ; and it believed, 
that Modestus was not their enemy for en- 
deavouring to show that Junius was in the 
wrong, and representing all the circum- 
stances of excuse which the nature of the 
case afforded. But here also Mr X. X. 
has convinced the world of its mistake : 
and it stands on his infaUible authority, 
that Junius is a faithful friend to these 
officers, and Modestus a rancorous and in- 
veterate enemy, whom nothing can satisfy 
but the loss of their commissions. The 
force of genius is certainly wonderful ! It 
discovers in propositions the very reverse of 
what they contain. But, Mr X. X., when 
you address the public again, remember, 
that though paradoxes astonish, they do 
not convince against evidence. 

However, we are but seconds in the 
quarrel between Modestus and Junius, and 
we ought not to suffer our principals to 



proceed to extremities. To soften the ran- 
cour of their contention, I woxild propose 
that some friendly unfriendly greeting (as 
Shakespeare calls it) should pass between 
them. They need not exchange armour 
like Glaucus and Diomede (an example 
which would afford me many choice allu- 
sions if I had time to pursue them), but they 
may exchange names. The propriety of this 
no man can dispute, for even X. X. will 
agree with me, that Modestus is a little 
young, and Junius not a little modest. 
I am. Sir, 
Your humble servant, 

Y. Y. 



LETTER LXVI. 



TO THE printer OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 25 November, 1769. 

For answer to my last letter, in 
which I asked a very plain question, viz. 
Whether the officers of the guards were or 
were not to be tried for the rescue of general 
Gansel ? — your correspondent Y. Y. con- 
tents himself with another question, whether 
I had learnt to read ? The question is per- 
tinent enough, and as much to the purpose 
as if he had enquired the hour of the day. 
Will this gentleman be so good as to quit 
all circumlocution, and tell us what we are 
to trust to? Is captain Garth, who deserted 
his guard at noon day, an equerry to the 
duke of Cumberland? Did he not leave the 
command of his guard to a person who had 
as little right to take it as Buckhorse, and 
is he or is he not protected by his Royal 
Highness ? — Is not captain Dodd the old 
friend of Henry Lawes Luttrell, and the 
son of the oldest and most intimate crony 
of lord Irnham ? Have either of the parties 
denied anyone of the facts stated by Ju- 
nius? — Has not colonel Salter been ordered 
to hold his peace ? — Has not William 
viscount Barrington, secretary at war, most 
infamously neglected his duty in not moving 
the king to order a court-martial for the 
trial of these offenders? And has not the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



439 



adjutant-general publicly and repeatedly, 
though in vain, represented that they ought 
to be cashiered ? What will the flat general 
contradiction of an anonymous writer avail 
against circumstances so particular, so well 
vouched, that the parties most concerned 
are ashamed or afraid to deny them ? How 
is Junius to prove his facts but by such a 
particularity and precision in the state of 
them, that no man, who knows any thing 
of the matter, will venture to dispute the 
truth of them ? In this case a negative is as 
strong as a positive proof, and the only 
proof the thing will admit of. It is abso- 
lutely incredible that neither captain Garth 
nor captain Dodd should contradict such 
facts, as lead immediately to their ruin, if 
justice were done. — Nothing but shame and 
self-conviction keep them silent. 

As to argument, I should be glad to 
know why the letter signed Moderatus ^ has 
not been answered? It has not even 
been attempted. — Depend upon it, Sir, the 
silence of Junius portends no good to the 
ministry.2 When he honours them with his 
notice it is not a momentary blast. He 
gathers like a tempest, and all the fury of 
the elements bursts upon them at once. 

X. X. 



Sir, 



LETTER LXVII. 
For the Public Advertiser. 

28 November y 1769. 
To Junius. 



Though you may choose to vent 
your illiberal resentment under the borrowed 
signature of X. X., I, who think scurrility 
no disgrace to your real name, shall not 
affect to make a distinction where there is 

^ Inserted in the genuine edition as Philo 
Junius, Letter XXXI.— Edit. 

^ The quotation in the note to the preceding 
Letter, from Private Letter, No 11, is followed 
by these words : ' But as soon as a good subject 
offers.' This was fulfilled in the attack upon the 
duke of Grafton in Letter XXXIII., for the gift 
of a patent place, customer of the port of Exeter, 
to colonel Burgo^'ne who sold it, with the sup- 
posed knowledge of his Grace, to Mr Hine for 



no difference. For the same reason I do 
not plead that, Junius having given the 
challenge, I am not bound to enter the lists 
against any other. It is a peculiar advan- 
tage in this sort of warfare, that when a 
man is routed in his own person, he can 
still keep the field under another ; and you 
in particular have a right to the device, non 
vultiis, non color 2mus. 

After giving up the question as Junius, 
you come back upon it as X. X. It would 
be a labour indeed to answer you the same 
questions in every form you are pleased 
to assume. But for once I will take the 
trouble to repeat what I have already said, 
not from any merit or novelty in your ques- 
tions, but to leave you without excuse. 
Had you turned over to my letter in the 
Gazetteer of the 13th of November, you 
would have discovered that the gentleman, 
who asked Mr X. X. whether he had 
learned to read, did not put a very imperti- 
nent question. It is there stated that cap- 
tain Garth was no otherwise concerned in 
general Gansel's rescue than by being 
absent from his guard when it happened. 
This is undoubtedly a military offence ; and 
if the friendship of Junius or X. X. will 
still insist to have it punished, there is no 
help for it. But it is not true that captain 
Garth left his guard to be commanded by 
any person ; and it is immaterial to the 
question whether he be equerry to the duke 
of Cumberland, or protected by him. If 
the thing is so, I congratulate him : but 
surely that honour neither makes him a 
criminal, nor aggravates his supposed 
crime. With respect to captain Dodd, you 
have brought a fresh charge against him, to 
which there can be no defence. He is, it 
seems, a companion of colonel Luttrell, 
and his father is the intimate friend of lord 



;^4ooo. This Junius deemed so strong a hold 
upon the duke, as to advise the printer, on a 
threatened prosecution for publishing this letter, 
which contains a very severe statement of the 
fact, ' not to shew fear, but to tell them he 
would justify, and subpoena INIr Hine, Burgoyne, 
and Bradshaw of the Treasury,' as that v.'ould 
'silence them at once.' See Private Letter, No. 
15. — Edit. 



440 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Irnham. I am sorry for it ; but if he is 
guilty of such a crime I must give him up ; 
and I do it with the utmost gratitude to the 
friendly and compassionate Junius, who 
requires no greater punishment for an 
offence of this heinous nature, than to ruin 
the fortune and reputation of the person 
who committed it. 

I must also congratulate you upon that 
candour and moderation with which you 
declined the contest on this point, lest you 
should prejudge the trial, civil or mihtary, 
which I told you was intended. This cir- 
cumstance affords so striking a proof of 
your humanity, that you leave me at a loss 
in what manner to acknowledge it. 

But raillery apart. Have you really for- 
got, or are you so supine, that you could 
not take the trouble to look over my letter, 
before you crowded together so many 
ridiculous questions ? It is there affirmed 
that these unfortunate gentlemen would 
have been immediately tried by military 
law, unless it had occurred, that a trial by 
court-martial might possibly prejudge the 
civil action intended to be carried on by the 
party injured. Some reasons for this were 
given, and such as ought to have satisfied 
a patriot at least. But I have learned by 
much observation that nothing will satisfy 
a patriot but a place. 

Once more I will state those reasons, and 
though I do not believe you will feel them, 
yet I am persuaded every man, who knows 
or values our constitution, will be convinced 
of their weight. 

By the articles of war a military officer 
who shall oppose or resist the civil magis- 
trate in the execution of his duty, shall be 
cashiered ; and the only question that re- 
mains is, in what manner can the offence 
be ascertained ? I maintain diat a court- 
martial cannot enter into the question of 
fact, by leading evidence to prove that the 
offence was committed, because this would 
be to deprive an EngHshman of his right of 
trial for civil offences by jury. The legal 
and constitutional method of procedure in 
these cases is a common trial at law for a 
civil offence, and a conviction of the 



offender at common law is the only evi- 
dence upon which a court-martial can 
proceed to inflict the military punishment. 
This being so, had a court-martial been 
ordered, or were it now ordered upon these 
gentlemen, it would be a manifest violation 
of their privileges as Englishm.en ; because 
the issue is not yet tried at common law ; 
and till the offenders are tried and con- 
victed at law, there exists no medium on 
which a court-martial can proceed. 

This doctrine may be new to you ; but it 
is not so to any man acquainted with the 
constitution of which you pretend to be an 
assertor. The single point in dispute be- 
tween us is, whether the ministry acted 
properly or improperly in the affair of gen- 
eral Gansel's rescue ? You say the minis- 
ter ought to have ordered a court-martial 
to try the officers concerned in it immedi- 
ately ; and because he did not you accuse 
him to the public. I, on the other hand, 
affirm, that a court-martial ought not to have 
been called immediately ; that the officers 
could not have been tried consistently with 
the laws of the land ; and if the minister 
had acted otherwise than he did, he would 
have been guilty of a very gross violation of 
our rights. The reasons on which we 
found this difference in opinion are before 
the public, and it will judge of them with- 
out respect to you or to me. Whether the 
parties have denied the facts or not, whether 
colonel Salter speaks or holds his tongue, 
are very immaterial ciixumstances ; but if 
my position is right, lord Barrington has 
not neglected his duty in not moving the 
king to order a court-martial, which the 
king could not order in the present state of 
the case, consistently with that tender re- 
gard which his Majesty has ever shown for 
the civil rights of his subjects. To answer 
directly the question you ask, whether or 
not the officers are to be tried ? is impossi- 
ble. It is a future event, and though the 
present intention of the ministry is, I be- 
heve, favourable to the rancour of JUNiu.s, 
no man can tell what time may produce. 
But the question is certainly premature, 
and indeed the whole dispute would have 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



441 



come more properly before the public after 
the civil trial, which naturally and neces- 
sarily must precede the court-martial. 

No motive engaged me to enter into this 
altercation, save an honest indignation ex- 
cited by your malevolence, ignorance, and 
misrepresentation. I foresaw the illiberal 
abuse to which I exposed myself, and I re- 
ceived it as it deserves to be received. I 
will not do any of your alhes the honour to 
take notice of them, but I recommend it to 
you to tie up that over-drove animal John 
Bull, who seems indeed to be stimulated to 
madness, that he may no longer profane a 
respectable name, but own that which he 
received from his godfathers and god- 
mothers, viz. Patrick O' Bully. 

MODESTUS. 



LETTER LXVIII. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 2 Dec. 1769, 

I NEVER doubted that the unfor- 
tunate Modestiis, if left to himself, would 
soon ruin himself and his clients. He has 
now fairly clinched the matter. In his 
letter of this day his whole defence of the 
duke of Grafton, and all the weight of his 
arguments against Junius, are made to 
rest upon a supposed certainty that, when 
the common law has taken its course, the 
ofhcers of the guards will be brought to a 
court-martial. Here then we join issue 
\vith Modestiis ; and though near ten weeks 
have elapsed since the rescue of general 
Gansel, we are ready to admit that it is not 
yet too late for the minister to do his duty ; 
but if, notwithstanding the assurances given 
us by Modestiis, it should appear that there 
never was an intention to bring these 
offenders to a trial, how will he answer it to 
the public, that he has dared to take up 
such a cause, and to impose so many gross 
falsehoods upon our credulity ? As a 
friend, I would advise him to look out in 
time for some plausible evasion. The 
ministry have singular reasons for every 



thing they do, and I will venture to foretell 
that the officers of the guards will never be 
brought to a court-martial, because their 
offence is so great, that they must inevita- 
bly be cashiered. 

X. X. 



LETTER LXIX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 5 March, tjjo. 

There is a certain set of men, 
who, upon almost every action of their 
lives, are insulted with the pity both of their 
enemies and their friends. They seem to 
have discovered the art of doing whatever 
is base and detestable, without forfeiting 
their claim to the public compassion. A 
bad man, with resolution and abilities, 
is a formidable being. His great quahties 
compensate for the absence of good ones, 
and though not entitled to esteem, secure 
him from contempt. — The persons I speak 
of are not in this predicament : they have 
nothing elevated in their vices. In vain 
do they labour to distinguish themselves 
by the violation of all public duties and 
private engagements. They still preserve 
their natural mediocrity of character, and 
have as little chance of being honoured 
with the detestation, as with the esteem of 
their country. 

I cannot mention the name of sir Edward 
Hawke without concern. How unfortunate 
it is that a heart, unacquainted with fear, 
should have so little sense of propriety and 
decorum ! I should be sorry to puzzle him 
with intricate questions either of policy or 
morals, but there are some distinctions 
within the reach even of his understanding. 
In his situation, it particularly became 
him to regulate his conduct by the judg- 
ment of the pubhc. Though not , ex- 
pected to think for himself, he might have 
taken a generous part with the friends of 
his country, and still have been respected 
for the integrity of his intentions. To what 
a poor, insignificant condition has he now 



442 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



reduced himself! Behold him, at such a 
conjuncture as the present, meanly keeping 
possession of an office, which he owes to 
lord Chatham's friendship, and distin- 
guished as the only surviving minister (of 
those introduced into the cabinet by lord 
Chatham ^) , who supports the present ad- 
ministration. What opinion can he de- 
liver in the House of Commons ? What 
measures can he maintain in the cabinet ? 
Instead of the dignity of thundering out 
secrets of state from the gallery, we see the 
first lord of the Admiralty skulking into 
the House, just before a division, as if he 
thought that everybody had heard the 
peremptory message sent him by Mr Brad- 
shaw. 

As to his opinions in council, he must 
either adopt a new set of ideas, or, if he 
presumes to differ from his colleagues, must 
silently submit to be over-ruled. On these 
terms he may be permitted to keep an em- 
ployment, which, since he sold his stock in 
the beginning of the winter, produces 
nothing, in addition to the salary, but the 
means of providing for his friends. The 
choice of commodore Hill and admiral 
Geary proves that he can discover latent 
merit in the most unpromising subjects. 
By this disposition of the command at 
Chatham and Portsmouth, he seems to aim 
at encouraging future services, rather than 
in rewarding the past ; and as to his 
economy,' was it possible to give a better 
proof of it, than by turning adrift a multi- 
tude of poor artificers to idleness and beg- 
gary, on purpose to make up four pounds a 
day for the use of Mr Geary ? 

Admiral Holburne's services in America 
have also been very properly considered. 
When so many Englishmen vacate their 
places, it would be strange indeed if a 
Scot of such distinguished merit had been 
left unprovided for. Sir Percy Brett resigns, 
— Mr Holburne succeeds him, and sir 
Edward Hawke is still first lord of the 



^ See editor's note to Letter XXIII.— Edit. 

^ This youth goes by the name of Gunpowder 
Beauchamp through the whole county. 

3 Lord Hertford not long ago had the modesty 
to desire that his son, a youth of twenty years 



Admiralty ! Proceed, sir Edward, in this 
honourable line. Be a spendthrift of your 
good name. We shall not quarrel with 
your prodigality, for you have a right to 
waste the reputation you had acquired. 
You once contributed largely to save this 
country, and have a creditor's claim to con- 
tribute to its destruction. 

The indigent circumstances of lord Hert- 
ford's family account for and justify their 
conduct. The same spirit of economy 
which animated the father to the sale of 
public employments in Ireland, revives in 
the son, and finds the best market for the 
ammunition of the Warwickshire militia. 2 
Lord Hertford, general Conway, and lord 
Beauchamp are the very quintessence of 
courtesy and candour. Undecided in their 
opinions, disengaged from all attachments, 
they support no measures without leaving 
room for explanation, and can reconcile the 
coldest indifference about the interests of 
others, with the warmest anxiety for their 
own. It is unluckily the fate of these 
moderate, candid persons to be despised by 
all parties. In vain does the gerttle Beau- 
champ give the Treasury bench the negative 
assistance of his oratory ;— in vain does his 
honest father beg an audience for personal 
solicitation in the closet. General Howard 
and the secretary at war have still spirit to 
resist. 3 The promotion goes in the regi- 
ment, and the military achievements of the 
younger Conway are left for future con- 
sideration. Poor lord Hertford ! what is 
this but a continuation of the duke of 
Grafton's tyranny ? From one minister we 
see him regularly kicked down to another. 
His nephew treats him like a footman, and 
lord North, with still greater severity, yokes 
him with general Graeme.^ 

My sincere compassion for lord Cornwallis 
arises not so much from his quality as from 
his time of life. A young man by a spirited 
conduct may atone for the deficiencies of 
his understanding. Where was the memory 



old, might be put over the heads of all general 
Howard's officers. 

4 Lord Hertford and this worthy Scotchman 
are spies in ordinary to the minister for the time 
being. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



443 



of this noble lord, or what kind of intellects 
must he possess, when he resigns his place, 
yet continues in the support of adminis- 
tration, and, to show his independence, 
makes a parade of attending lord North's 
levee, and pays a public homage to the 
deputy of lord Bute ! Where is now his 
attachment, where are now his professions 
to lord Chatham ; — his zeal for the Whig 
interest of England, and his detestation of 
lord Bute, the Bedfords, and the Tories? 
Since the time at which these were the only 
topics of his conversation, I presume he has 
shifted his company as well as his opinions. 
Will he tell the world to which of his uncles, 
or to what friend, to Philipson, or a Tory 
lord, he owes the advice which has directed 
his conduct ? I will not press him further. 
The young man has taken a wise resolution 
at last, for he is retiring into a voluntary 
banishment, in hopes of recovering the ruin 
of his reputation. 

These loose sketches are sufficient to 
mark to you the kind of character, which, 
with every quality that ought to make it 
odious, still continues pitiful, and is never 
important enough in mischief to excite in- 
dignation. I would not waste a thought in 
contriving the punishment or correction of 
such men ; but it may be useful to the pub- 



^ The letters under this signature are recog- 
nised by Junius in his Private Letter, No. 56. — 
Edit. 

^ The following are the particulars of the dis- 
pute which occurred in presenting the petition of 
March 6, 1770. 

On Wednesday the 7th, the sheriffs attended 
at St James's, to know his Majesty's pleasure, 
when he would be waited on with the city ad- 
dress, remonstrance, and petition; they were 
detained till twenty minutes after two, when, 
the levee being over, they, with the remem- 
brancer, were admitted into the closet, when Mr 
Sheriff Townshend addressed himself to his 
Majesty in the following words : 
'May it please your Majesty, 

' By order of the lord mayor, aldermen, and 
livery of the city of London, in common-hall 
assembled, we have taken the earliest oppor- 
tunity, as was our duty, to wait upon your Ma- 
jesty ; but, being prevented from having im- 
mediate access to your Majesty by one of your 
household, who informed us, that it was your 
Majesty's pleasure to receive us this day after 
the levee, we wait on j'our Majesty, humbly to 
know when your Majesty will please to be 



lie to see by what sort of creatures the pre- 
sent administration is supported. It is 
unnecessary to enlarge the catalogue. With- 
out name or description, they are distin- 
guished by a certain consciousness of shame 
which accompanies their actions. After 
deserting one party, they dare not engage 
heartily with the other ; and having re- 
nounced their first sentiments and connex- 
ions, are forced to proceed in the humble 
track of voting as they are ordered, without 
party, principle, or friends. 

DOMITIAN.i 



LETTER LXX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 10 March, 1770. 

No man is more warmly attached 
to the best of princes than I am. I rever- 
ence his personal virtues, as much as I 
respect his understanding, and am happy 
to find myself under the government of a 
prince, whose temper and abilities do equal 
honour to his character. At the same time, 
I confess, I did not hear without astonish- 
ment of the answer which some evil-minded 
counsellors advised him to return to the 
sheriffs of the city of London. ^ For a king 



attended with an humble address, remonstrance, 
and petition.' 

To which his Majesty was pleased to return 
the following answer : 

'As the case is entirely new, I will take time 
to consider of it, and transmit you an answer by 
one of my principal secretaries of state.' 

On Thursday evening the sheriffs received the 
following letter from lord Weymouth : 

' Gentlemen, St James's, March 8, 1770. 

'The king commands me to inform you, in 
consequence of the message which you brought 
yesterday to St James's, that he is always ready 
to receive applications from any of his subjects ; 
but as the present case of address, remonstrance, 
and petition, seems entirely new, I am com- 
manded to enquire of you in what manner it is 
authenticated, and what the nature of the as- 
sembly was, in which this measure was adopted ? 
— When you furnish me with answers to these 
questions, I shall signify to you his Majesty's 
further pleasure. 

' I am, Gentlemen, 

'Your most obedient 
' Sheriffs of London. ' ' humble servant, 

'Weymouth.' 



444 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



of Great Britain to take time to consider, 
whether he will or will not receive a petition 
from his subjects, seems to me to amount 
to this, that he will take time to consider 
whether he will or will not adhere to the 
fourth article of the Declaration of Rights. 
One would think that this could never have 
been a question in the mind of so gracious 
a prince, if there were not some very dan- 
gerous advice given in the closet. I now 
hear that it has been signified to the 
sheriffs, that his Majesty cannot receive the 
petition, until he is informed of the nature 
of the assembly in which it was composed. 
A king indeed is not obliged to understand 
the political forms and constitution of every 
corporation in his dominions, but his min- 
isters must be uncommonly ignorant who 
could not save him the embarrassment of 
asking such a question concerning the first 
body corporate perhaps in the world. The 



On the next day the sheriffs went to St James's, 
and after waiting some time, lord Bolingbroke 
came out, and enquired whether he was to tell 
his Majesty that they came with a fresh message, 
or with a message ? The sheriffs answered, with 
a message. Soon after the two secretaries of 
state, lord Rochford and lord Weymouth, came 
to the sheriffs. Lord Weymouth asked them 
' whether they had received his letter, which was 
written by his Majesty's order ? ' 

Sheriffs. ' We have.' 

Lord Weymouth. ' His Majesty desires to 
know whether you come in consequence of that 
letter ; or whether you come on any fresh busi- 
ness ? ' 

Sheriff's. ' We come in consequence of that 
letter.' 

Lord Weymouth. 'Would it not be more 
proper to send an answer in writing through me ? ' 

She7-iffs. ' We act ministerially. As sheriffs 
of London we have a right to an audience ; and 
cannot communicate to any other person than the 
king, the subject of our message.' 

Lord Weymouth. ' I do not dispute your 
right to an audience ; but would it not be better 
and more accurate to give your message to me 
in writing ? ' 

Sheriffs. ' We know the value and conseqtience 
of the citizens' right to apply immediately to the 
king, and not to a third person ; and we do not 
mean that any of their rights and privileges shall 
be betrayed by our means.' 

Lord Wey7nou.th then said, ' His Majesty un- 
derstanding that you come ministerially author- 
ized with a message from the city of London, 
will see you as soon as the levee is over ; ' and 
being introduced accordingly, Mr Sheriff Towns- 
hend addressed his Majesty in these words : 



sheriffs, I presume, will hardly venture to 
satisfy so unusual an inquiry upon their own 
bare authority. They will naturally move 
the lord mayor to summon another com- 
mon-hall, to answer for themselves ; and 
then, I doubt not, the corporation of the 
city of London will fully explain, to those 
whom it may concern, who they are, and 
what is the natuj-e of their assembly. After 
all. Sir, I do not apprehend that the pro- 
priety of the king's receiving a petition from 
any of his subjects depends in the least upon 
their quality or situation. He is bound by 
the Declaration and subsequent Bill of 
Rights to receive all petitions from his sub- 
jects. What notice or answer the contents 
of them may deserve, must be considered 
afterwards. To refuse the petition itself is 
against law. I am persuaded, however, 
that nothing can be further from the inten- 
tion of our gracious sovereign, than to 



' May it please your Majesty, 

' When we had last the honour to appear before 
your Majesty, your Majesty was graciously 
pleased to promise an answer by one of your Ma- 
jesty's principal secretaries of state ; but we had 
yesterday questions proposed to us by lord Wey- 
mouth. In answer to which we beg leave humbly 
to inform your Majesty, that the application which 
we make to your Majesty, we make as sheriffs 
of the city of London, by the direction of the 
livery in common-hall legally assembled. The 
address, remonstrance, and petition, to be pre- 
sented to your Majesty by their chief magistrate, 
is the act of the citizens of London in their great- 
est court; and is ordered by them to be properly 
authenticated as their act.' 

To which his Majesty replied as follows : 

' I will consider of the answer you have given 
me.' 

Whereupon the sheriffs withdrew. 

On the Monday following the sheriffs received 
the subjoined letter. 

' St yames's, 12 March, 1770. 

'Gentlemen, 

_' The king has commanded me to signify 
to you his Majesty's pleasure that he will receive 
on Wednesday next, at two o'clock in the after- 
noon, the address, remonstrance, and petition, 
which you have informed his Majestj' is to be 
presented by the chief magistrate of the city of 
London. 

' I am, Gentlemen, 

'Your most obedient 
' Sheriffs of London.'' ' humble Servant, 

' Weymouth.' 

The address, &c. was presented accordingly, 
and for a copy of it see editor's note to Letter 
XXXVIL— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



445 



offer a gross affront to the whole city of 
London. It is evident that the ministry 
either mean to gain time for carrying some 
poor counter-measure, by means of the 
wretched dependants of the court, or to 
intimidate the city magistrates, and deter 
them from doing their duty. I think it 
therefore absolutely necessary for us to 
rouse in defence of the honour of the city, 
and demonstrate to the ministry, by the 
spirit and vigour of our proceedings, that 
we are not, what they are pleased to repre- 
sent us, the scum of the earth, and the 
vilest and basest of mankind. 

MODERATUS.i 



LETTER LXXI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 26 June, 1770. 

That we may be quietly governed 
is a very proper petition in the service of the 
Church of England. If the worst men 
should be put in authority under the king, 
they will think it pohiic to counteract the 
prayers of the people, and indifferently 
minister injustice, to the punishment of 
virtue, and the maintenance of vice. The 
duke of Grafton has devoted himself to 
these principles with all the fervour of an 
enthusiast, nor can we avoid lamenting 
that so inilexible a bigot should still have 
failed of martyrdom. His Grace has 
triumphed over the last moments of his 
power, nor permitted its extinction till he 
had dismissed the chancellor, 2 and pro- 
cured a pension, inadequate, indeed, to 
former merits for the truly honest Mr Brad- 
shaw.3 The first occurrence has been 
sufficiently canvassed ; the propriety with 
which his Grace has effected the second 
occurrence, cannot possibly be felt through 
all its force, till the deserving object of 



^ Letter XXXI., which, in the genuine edition, 
is signed Philo Jji7iius, had, when it originally- 
appeared in the Pubh'c Advertiser, the signature 
oi Moderaius affixed to it.— Edit. 

^ The dismissed chancellor was lord Camden. 
— Edit. 



ministerial gratitude has spoken for himself. 

Come forward, Mr Bradshaw, thou wor- 
thy, but much injured man, at once con- 
vince and undeceive the public. Tell 
them, that if a person should exist, who 
dares even to insinuate that the following 
relation is founded upon stubborn facts, 
he is a gross defamer of unbiassed honour, 
and would extend that rancorous abuse, 
which hitherto has preyed upon the fairest 
and most courtly characters, till it asperse 
your own. 

Mrs AUenby entered into an engagement 
with Miss Bradshaw in behalf of Mr Alien- 
by, her husband. It was stipulated that 
she should give into Miss Bradshaw's hands 
the sum of six hundred pounds, which was 
to have been the purchase-money of the 
place of surveyor of the pines in America. 
An application was soon afterwards made 

for the same place by captain P ,^ who 

promised that on receiving it he would pay 
down the sum of eight hundred pounds. 
In consequence of this promise, the name 
of Mr AUenby, already inserted in the hst 
of intended promotions, was erased, and 
the blank filled up with the name of captain 
P- , to which was added a written asser- 
tion that his appointment was owing to Mr 
Allenby's having chosen to decline going. 
When this affair was examined at the board 
of treasury, Mrs AUenby was asked where 
her husband was during this transaction. 
She answered, 'in Cumberland, assisting 
in the support of the Portland interest, 
when Mr Robinson and Mr Jenkinson 
were doing what mischief they could to 
oblige sir James Lowther.' 

The latter part of Mrs Allenby's declara- 
tion occasioned some little entertainment. 
She was ignorant that the two intimate 
friends of the earl of Bute, whose charac- 
ters she was then drawing, were actually 
present. Mr Bradshaw pleaded in excuse 
that his sister, a milhner near Moorfields, 
was solely concerned in this business. 



3 Mr Bradshaw, as often observed before, was 
the duke of Giafton's secretary. — Edit. 

4 Who the person here alluded to is, cannot be 
ascertained. — Edit, 



446 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 


When Mr Cooper mentioned to Mr Brad- 
shaw an intention of lodging a complaint 
against him, he burst into tears.— They 
could not have been tears of penitence, or 
they imply preceding guilt. 

When Mr Bradshaw shall have excul- 
pated his conduct, which cannot be arraign- 
ed without injustice, he may, perhaps, 
become a conspicuous instance of the pre- 
valence of example. The voice of injured 
innocence may sound within a neighbour- 
ing quarter ; and, as the ostensible premier 
may be questioned on a similar occasion, 
his Lordship will have an opportunity to 
revive this long-forgotten trutli. However 
contemptibly the world may judge of min- 
isters of state, they are not conscious to 
themselves of any guilt. 

Q IN THE CORNER. 


Labourer in the public Cause,^ has a claim 
to our attention, rather from the liberality 
and candour with which he has stated his 
ideas, than from the force of argument with 
which he has supported them. He seems 
to have forgotten that the national resent- 
ment has not been so much excited by the 
exclusion of Mr Wilkes as by the insertion 
of Mr Luttrell. He does not seem to be 
aware that the discussion of the great ques- 
tion can never be brought on in a new- 
mode as long as Mr Wilkes is to be the 
ground-work of the debate : that the argu- 
ments for incapacitation of that gentleman 
were merely personal : that they respected 
the member returned, without any reference 
to the constituents : and, therefore, that the 
substitution of other constituents can effect 
no alteration in the case whilst the person 
returned continued the same. 

Your correspondent would likewise have 
done well to have borne in mind that the 
livery of London have, by the most authen- 
tic act of the corporation, declared to the 
world, that the intrusion of Mr Luttrell has 
vitiated the present parliament. 2 With 


LETTER LXXII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 27 June, 1770. 

Your correspondent, A Fellow- 


^ A letter under the above signature appeared 
on the preceding day, recommending Mr Wilkes 
to stand forward as a candidate for the city of 
London on the death of alderman Beckford. — 
Edit. 

^ In such popular detestation was the conduct 
of the ministry and parliament held, with respect 
to their proceedings in the Middlesex election, 
that Mr Alderman Townshend went so far as to 
try the legality of the act of parliament for 
raising the land-tax, the alderman having refused 
to pay it on the pretence that the intrusion of 
Mr Luttrell had vitiated the parliament, and 
negatived its power. 

The trial took place June 9, 1772, and the fol- 
lowing account of it is extracted from the Public 
Advertiser of the ensuing day. 

Yesterday came on in the Court of King's 
Bench the long-expected cause between Mr 
Alderman Townshend and the collector of the 
land-tax. Lord Mansfield had appointed the 
trial for nine o'clock precisely ; but he delayed it 
till near eleven, waiting for the attorney-gen- 
eral, who did not attend. The cause was opened 
by Mr Davenport ; after which Mr Serjeant 
Glynn addressed the jury, and informed them 
that in common cases it was the custom to con- 
tent themselves with proving the trespass, and 
then leave the justification of it to the defendant ; 
but he said the present case required a further 
discussion from him ; that it was an important 


constitutional point upon which the valuable 
rights of the whole nation depended. He said, 
he was directed by his client, Mr Townshend, to 
conduct the cause as its importance demanded : 
that therefore he should wave all the informalities 
in the collector's proceedings : he would admit 
him likewise to be collector, and that he was 
authorized by the commissioners : that the single 
ground of his pleading would be that the com- 
missioners themselves were not authorized : for 
that a House of Commons legally chosen by the 
people are alone empowered to levy taxes in this 
country ; and he said, he insisted and would 
prove by evidence that the persons who passed 
the act of parliament (under which the collector 
had seized Mr Townshend's hay) were impro- 
perly called a House of Commons, because they 
were illegally and defectively constituted. He 
said that to the making of all laws and the levy- 
ing of all taxes, it was formerly necessary that 
every freeholder should assent individually ; and 
especially before a tax was to be levied the con- 
stituents formerly were first referred to, .because 
they were to consent to what they were to pay. 
Custom and usage (he said) had now made it 
common for the representatives in parliament to 
speak for the people, and this was considered the 
same as the consent of the people, because they 
were freely chosen by the people for that pur- 
pose ; and after every election a formal let- 
ter of attorney ^the indenture) is always given 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



447 



Avhat consistency then can the same body 
of men subscribe to tlie integrity of the 
same parhament upon any other terms than 
the previous extermination of the contam- 
inating object? The introduction of Mr 
Wilkes into the House is in itself a circum- 
stance of httle importance. If parhament 
and the county of Middlesex had gone on 
in an eternal circulation of expulsions and 
returns, the essence of that assembly would 
not have been affected. The indispensable 
point is, that the corrupt member should 
be lopped off; a point that will hardly be 
compassed by an event of such indifference 
to the public as the mere seating Mv Wilkes 
in the House of Commons a representative 
of the city of London. 

Upon the plan of your correspondent, 
the prosecutors, indeed, will be changed, 



by the electors to the person they have 
• chosen. He said, that this impUed consent of 
the people by their representatives depended 
entirely on their having the free choice of their 
representatives : for that if their freedom of 
choice was invaded, the reference and implica- 
tion were destroyed, and the people would no 
longer have any the least consent in the making 
of laws or levying of taxes; but that their lives 
and their property would be absoluteh' at the 
mercy of any set of men who should call them- 
selves a parliament, corrupted by the revenue, 
and supported by the troops of a weak or a 
wickad tyrant. He said, that this, as far at least 
as it related to representation, was the case with 
the present persons who call themselves a House ; 
for which, he said, as they were not chosen, so 
neither are they acknowledged, bj^ the people : 
the county of Middlesex, he said, was not repre- 
sented : that one of the members legally chosen 
by the county had been forcibly and illegally 
excluded ; and another person as illegally and 
forcibl}' substituted in his room. Mr Glynn then 
gave a very striking account of the absurdity and 
impudence of i^Ir Luttrclfs pretensions, and of' 
the infamy of our , and his abettors and' ac- 
complices. He said, the present pretended 
House of Commons had superseded the election 
of the county by an unwarrantable resolution of 
their own ; and had, by so doing, seized into 
their own hands and for their own use and emolu- 
ment, the birth-right of all the people of Eng- 
land. He proved in the clearest manner that the 
pretence of Mr Wilkes's incapacity does not exist 
in the law : and that the people's right of repre- 
sentation is less than a name if the House of 
Commons has an indefinite power of expulsion. 
Mr Glynn said he would produce unquestionabfe 
evidence to the points on which he had rested 
the merits of his cause ; notwithstanding that he 
thought it unnecessary, because the facts were 



but the cause will still be the same. It is 
in the power of administration alone to 
vary and extend the cause, by arbitrarily 
incapacitating another member legally elect- 
ed ; a measure which they do in truth 
' tremble at the thoughts of. ' 

In conclusion : the restoration of parlia- 
ment must begin in the person of Mr Lut- 
trell ; nor can the injury to the people of 
England be heightened in the person of Mr 
Wilkes. Every county, every borough, is 
already as essentially affected as the county 
of Middlesex. It is an eternal truth in the 
political as well as the mystical body, that 
' where one member suffers, all the mem- 
bers suffer with it.' 

I am, 
A LABOURER IN THE SAME 
CAUSE. 

so notorious and so well known to the jury them- 
selves, that they could of their own knowledge, 
agreeably to the laws of the land, give a verdict 
for the plaintiff even without any evidence. 

As soon as Mr Glynn had finished his speech 
and was directing the evidence to be called, Mr 
Wallace 'the king's counsellor) produced a printed 
paper, which he said was the act of parliament 
by which the collector levied the tax. As for the 
objection that had been made by Mr Glynn 
relative to the seat of one of the members, or of 
the legality of the parliament, he said the courts 
of Westminster-hall had no power to determine. 

Lord Mansfield then rose and said, that he 
perceived Mr Glynn wanted that court to retry 
the judgment of the House of Commons touching 
the case of the Middlesex election : That is, said 
his Lordship, he wants to prove that tke legisla- 
ture is dissolved ; and that aU the acts of parlia- 
ment made since the year 1769 are void. The 
evidence which Mr Glynn wants to produce is 
not by law admissible, and I will not suffer it to 
be given. — ' Gentlemen of the jury, you will find 
for the defendant.' — The clerk then hurried over 
the form, and said, — ' Gentlemen of the jurj-, 
hearken to your verdict, &c., you find for the 
defendant, and so you say all' — Whereupon one 
of the jury, Mr Long, said that he did not con- 
sent to that verdict. This dissent caused some 
embarrassment to lord Mansfield, which he soon 
got over by saying, ' Gentlemen, you are sworn 
to give a verdict according to the evidence ; now 
110 evidence has bee7i. prodiiced to j'ou against the 
defendant ; therefore you must find for him. 
You cannot try facts by 7iotoriety, that is not 
law, you must go by evidence, and you have 
heard no evidence, you must find for the de- 
fendant.' 

The jury accordingly acquitted the defendant. 
— Edit. 



448 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER LXXIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Southampton-street, Bloomsiury, 
Sir, 27 Jmie, 1770. 

Having, to my great surprise, 
seen in a letter published in your paper of 
yesterday, signed Q in the Corner, the fol- 
lowing paragraph : 

' When Mr Cooper mentioned to Mr 
Bradshaw an intention of lodging a com- 
plaint against him, he burst into tears." 

I think myself bound in honour and in 
justice to declare, that the whole of this 
assertion is false and groundless : I never 
mentioned to Mr Bradshaw any intention of 
lodging a complaint against him ; I never 
heard of any such intention ; and I do not 
know of any circumstance whatsoever that 
can justify the least imputation on Mr 
Bradshaw of the nature intended to be con- 
veyed by the said letter. 
I am. Sir, 
Your humble servant, 

GREY COOPER. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

TO THE printer OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 30 June, 1770. 

I RECEIVED the circumstance of 
Mr Bradshaw's having burst into tears from 
an authority which I thought at least equal 
to Mr Cooper's, and therefore I believed 
and asserted it. I now perceive that I was 
mistaken, do willingly give up so capital a 
point in Mr Bradshaw's case, and join with 
his honourable friend in declaring, that he 
has not wept at all about the matter. 

I have a high opinion of Mr Cooper's in- 
tegrity, but a much higher of Mr Brad- 
shaw's. I find the fair image of truth in 
the first, in the last I expect to meet an 
oracle. Why will not Mr Bradshaw be so 
obliging as to step forward, and declare 
upon his honour, that he ' does not know 



of any circumstance whatsoever, that can 
justify the least imputation on him of the 
nature which seems to Mr Cooper to have 
been conveyed by a letter in this paper.' 

I allow Mr Cooper's evidence as far as 
it relates to the falling of some few tears to 
be entirely decisive ; but I am not so courtly 
as to infer from Mr Cooper's absolute 
ignorance of the subject an equal one in 
Mr Bradshaw. It is from Mr Bradshaw, 
who must know something more of the 
matter than Mr Cooper, that I expect to 
be told, that no board was ever held at 
which this particular subject was introduced, 
and that Mrs AUenby was not at that time 
present. 

May I presume humbly to enquire of Mr 
Bradshaw if Mr Dyson did not at that time 
examine Mrs Allenby ; if he did not attempt 
to browbeat her ; and if a noble Lord had 
not the humanity to interfere ? 

After all, it maybe worth remarking, that 
Mr Cooper's testimony seems to relate only 
to his own intentions with respect to lodg- 
ing a complaint, and his own ideas of the 
imputations that should arise from trans- 
actions of this nature. 
I am, Sir, 
Your humble servant, 
Q IN THE CORNER. 



LETTER LXXV. 



For the Public Advertiser. 

7 July, 1770. 
TO THOMAS BRADSHAW, ESQ. 

Your honourable colleague, Mr 
Cooper, bore witness to your innocence. 
So full a vindication was superfluous. I dare 
answer for it, that the opinion which the 
public had conceived of your integrity is 
still unaltered ; it could not have been 
lessened although your champion never had 
appeared ; nor has his entrance within the 
lists at dll increased it. I took the liberty 
to appeal from his decision to your own : 
you seem determined to be silent. Perhaps 
the rigour of your situation deprives you of 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



449 



any choice between the sacrifice of truth 
and cf yourself. You nobly hesitate to 
make the first, and tacitly confess, that in 
one heedless moment throughout a life of 
unpolluted honesty you may have been to 
blame. Perhaps you do not think it quite 
ineligible to let this matter die away. Con- 
sult the feelings of your heart, and they will 
tell you that the public forms of justice can 
avail but little. They will not either yield 
a shelter to yourself, or enable you to direct 
the storm against another. I have not 
written from conjecture, nor can you be 
ignorant that I have drawn my inteUigence 
from its first source, and not the common 
falsities of the day. There is a place which 
once was called the House of Prayer ; I 
leave it to men more versed in Scripture 
phrases than myself to tell you what it is at 
present. Should you hereafter think it 
proper to discuss this subject there, you 
possibly may find an individual in that 
virtuous congregation who will assist the 
hitherto ineffectual inquiries of 

Q IN THE CORNER. 



LETTER LXXVI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 7 July, 1770. 

I FIND myself engaged at once 
with two antagonists of very different com- 
plexions. I must content myself, however, 
with opposing the same obvious reasoning 
of a plain man, to the cool circumspect 
address of The Fellow-labotwer in the public 
Cause, and to the rapid, eager precipitation 
of his supporter. The latter of these gentle- 
men, with a temperance that does not seem 
to belong to him, is peremptorily of 
opinion, 'that when a particular injustice 
is founded on, and supported by, a general 
principle, the appeal should no longer be 
made to the passions, but to the wisdom of 
the people.' The reverse is, I believe, 
invariably true. Prudence may incline us 
to forget the injury of a moment, the 



impulse of passion, or the suggestion of 
caprice. Let the same injury be offered 
to us with all the insolence of authority, 
or even let the authority be pretended to 
without any actual exertion, and wisdom 
herself shall call forth every passion to re- 
sist it. 

A simple tax of a few shillings, illegally 
extorted, was sufficient to enlighten the 
understandings of the whole nation. Every- 
body perceived that one such instance, 
supporting itself on a general claim, was 
equivalent to, and (like an universal pro- 
position) comprehended a thousand. It did 
not require the sagacity of a Hampden to 
deduce the consequences ; but it called for 
all his spirit to oppose them. 

I am ready to acknowledge, that ' in 
rigorous consistency the city of London 
ought not to return any representative ' to 
St Stephen's Chapel ; I am more ready to 
dispense with ' the attendance of some of 
the present city members.' But I am still 
willing to admit the necessity of their de- 
parting a little from that rigour — because I 
see no medium between such a temporary 
accommodation, and either the miseries of 
civil bloodshed, or (what is infinitely more 
to be deprecated) the established tran- 
quillity of servitude. 

The right of resistance on the part of 
the people, is the ultimate sanction of our 
civil liberties. But God forbid that we 
should be too critically exact in defining 
the precise boundary where the exertion of 
that right becomes a duty. The distresses 
of an intestine war are known, and inevita- 
ble ; the event precarious. It may be better 
to submit, for a time, to what even is an 
irregularity in the most essential part of the 
state, than instantly to seek redress by 
violence. Every other conceivable method 
ought first to be eagerly adopted, and 
earnestly pursued. Something may be ex- 
pected from time, from importunity, from 
fear ; perhaps something even from con- 
science and remorse. And if, at length, 
without coming to extremities, the integrity 
of the legislature should be restored, the 
tyrannical decisions of an unauthorized 
29 



4SO 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



assembly will of course be abrogated ; their 
viseful acts may receive a ratification from 
a legitimate parliament. 

You perceive, Sir, that I am not here 
maintaining the doctrine asserted in the 
city remonstrance, but arguing from it. 
Yet I must beg leave to observe, that the 
distinction introduced by this correspond- 
ent, between a speculative and a practical 
parliament, a parliament de jure and de 
facto, is equally novel and monstrous. On 
this account I cannot but be of opinion 
that the city should adhere to their consti- 
tutional speculation, and insist that Mr 
Wilkes is actual representative of Middle- 
sex ; although they may without blame, 
perhaps, acquiesce, for a time, in the pro- 
ceedings of an assembly, to which they 
cannot even allow the rank of a convention. 

For the sake of peace they may be justi- 
fied in returning Mr Oliver. For the sake 
not merely of consistency, but of the safety 
and dignity of the state, Mr Wilkes must 
not be allowed to quit ' the sure ground on 
which he stands,' to borrow an expression 
of his own in an address to his constituents. 

But, it seems, ' if Mr Wilkes were re- 
turned by the city, and admitted to take 
his seat, the unconstitutional principle 
would be ipso facto overturned." Let us 
see, then, how the argument will stand. 
If the admission of Mr Wilkes would ipso 
facto overturn the unconstitutional princi- 
ple, undoubtedly the continuation of Mr 
Luttrell must ipso facto perpetuate it. — 
What is this but to make the House of 
Commons such an absurd monster in poli- 
tics, as has never yet disgraced the reason 
or the patience of mankind : a legislative 
body subsisting by two principles (each in 
its full force and energy) equal, contrary, 
and mutually destructive. 

The Fellow-labourer of this day has, in- 
deed, candidly admitted, that the exter- 
mination of Mr Luttrell is the indispensable 
point, if your other correspondent, who 
absolutely denies the position, will indulge 
me in the phrase. Mr Luttrell holds his 
seat by a very different title from a common 
determination in the case of a contested 



return. In the latter instance, the jurisdic- 
tion of the House is competent ; nor has 
the constitution hitherto provided an appeal 
from their decision. In the case before us, 
a new and unheard of power is supposed 
to be usurped, and rights beyond the reach 
of the whole legislature, I mean the funda- 
mental rights of the people, invaded by a' 
third part of it. By this invasion Mr 
Luttrell was seated ; upon this principle 
the return was amended by the House, 
and his name inserted ; and it is in conse- 
quence of that alteration that he still ranks 
as a member of parliament. As long, 
therefore, as he shall be permitted to sit 
there, so long will the principle be in force. 
For in the House of Commons, as in every 
other court, prove the jurisdiction to be in- 
competent to the case, and the adjudication 
falls to the ground. 

It appears to me that both your corre- 
spondents have contemplated this subject 
in too confined a view. For my own part, 
I think too highly of Mr Wilkes's services 
to the state, and of the sacredness of our 
common cause, to wish either one or the 
other to be made a mere engine of party, 
or a scarecrow of opposition. But since 
the gentlemen from whom I dissent have 
dehvered their sentiments concerning the 
effect which the proposed measure would 
probably produce in the House of Commons 
and in ministry, I too, in my turn, will 
venture to pronounce, that nothing is so 
ardently desired by either, as a separation 
between the county of Middlesex and Mr 
Wilkes. 

I am, Sir, 
Your humble servant, 
A LABOURER IN THE SAME 
CAUSE. 



LETTER LXXVII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 November, 1770. 

A FEW days ago I was in a large 
public company, where there happened 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



451 



some curious conversation. The secretary 
at wari was pleased to express himself 
with unusual simplicity and candour. He 
assured us that, after having carefully con- 
sidered the subject, he did not know a 
single general officer (out of near a hundred 
now in the service) who was in any shape 
quahfied to command the army ; and for 
fear we should not believe him, repeated 
and inforced his assertion five several times. 
You will allow, Sir, that, at the eve of a 
foreign war, this is pretty comfortable in- 
telhgence for the nation, especially as it 
comes from authority. He gave us some 
consolation, however, by assuring us that 
he and general Hervey would take excel- 
lent care of the army, and compared him- 
self (not unhappily) to an old woman cur- 
ing an ague with the assistance of doctor 
Radcliff. — I don't so much question Mr 
Hervey's being able to give good advice, 
as that other little man's being either will- 
ing or able to follow it ; but I should be 
glad to know which of them is to be re- 
sponsible to the country for the manage- 
ment of the army, or whether they are 
invested with equal powers ? Is lord Bar- 
rington the marksman and general Hervey 
only the stalking-horse ? Or does the latter 
command, and that other only do as he is 
bid ? This point, I think, ought to be ex- 
plained ; for if we don't know who com- 
mands the army, and any mischief should 
happen, the secretary at war and adjutant- 
general will of course lay the blame upon 
each other, and the nation never know 
which of them ought to be punished. 

TESTIS. 



LETTER LXXVIII.2 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 24 November, 1770. 

I HAVE never joined in the severe- 
censures which have lately been thrown 

^ Lord Viscount Barrington. 
^ On the outside of Note No. 25, which ac- 
companied this letter, was written, by the author, 



upon lord Barrington. The formal declara- 
tion he was pleased to make (for the in- 
formation of the House of Commons and 
of this country), with respect to the shame- 
ful ignorance and incapacity of all the 
general officers, without exception, may, 
for aught I know, be extremely well 
founded ; and if it were not so, I do not 
consider the viscount as a free agent. He 
undoubtedly meant no more than, as a 
dutiful servant, to obey the orders, and to 
express the sentiments, of his royal master. 
The secretary at war, it is true, has a mul- 
titude of enemies, but the bitterest of them 
will not affirm that he is positively an 
idiot, without a single ray of understanding. 
That would be going a little too far. Yet 
he must certainly be the very weakest of 
the human species, if without any plan or 
purpose whatsoever, he loaded himself with 
the hatred and resentment of so large and 
powerful a body of men as the general 
officers. This, I think, is too absurd to be 
supposed. Yet I do not pretend to deny 
the fact. On the contrary, I mean to 
account for it upon clear and rational 
principles. — If it be the king's intention 
(as we have sufficient reason to think it is) 
to govern the army himself (by which 
means the disposal of commissions, like 
every thing else, will ultimately centre in 
Carlton House); the first step is to possess 
the public with an opinion, that this mea- 
sure is not of choice but necessity. When 
the secretary at war has informed the 
House of Commons, in the name of his 
gracious master (for it is not to be sus- 
pected that he spoke for himself), that all 
his general officers were no better than 
drivellers, it follows of course that the 
secretary at war, with the adjutant-general's 
advice, must be the ostensible manager of 
the army ; and then you see. Sir, every 
thing goes on as her Royal Highness the 
princess dowager of Wales would have it. 

Far be it from me to impeach his Ma- 
jesty's judgment in military matters. Our 
gracious sovereign cannot possibly have a 



' the enclosed strikes deeper than you may im- 
agine. C — Edit. 



45^ 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



meaner opinion of his general officers than 
I have. Yet I own there is one circum- 
stance that a Httle surprises me. These 
poor creatures, it is agreed on all hands, 
have neither capacity nor experience ; but 
one would think that, as soldiers and gen- 
tlemen, they might show a little spiiit when 

they are insulted. What, will they go 

to court again, to bow and cringe and 

fawn upon ***** who orders his 
official servant to point them out to their 
country, as a knot of idiots — asses — mules 
— beasts of burthen ! 

This affair. Sir (as many other circum- 
stances do, and more important ones may 
do hereafter), puts me in mind of the sin- 
cere, honest, candid character of that pious 
prince, Charles the First. When a great 
number of the first people of this country 
had hazarded their lives and spent their 
fortunes in his defence, and when, in the 
last instance, they had formed a convention 
at Oxford, which, if not a parliament, was 
at least a meeting highly respectable, what 
return did they receive from that devout, 
rehgious, grateful monarch? He flattered 
them to their faces, and the next moment 
wrote to his wife that they were a base, 
mutinous set of mongrels, whom he was 
happy to get rid of. 

TESTICULUS. 



LETTER LXXIX. 

TO THE PRINTET? OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, • 8 Dec. 1770. 

A REPORT prevails tliat the late 
premier is very soon to be placed at the 
head of the Admiralty.— I thought Junius 
had fairly hissed him off the stage. But 
since he adventures again to appear before 
the public, let me do justice to his modesty, 
and commend him for his discretion, in 
sinking to an inferior character. I should 
be sorry to interrupt so natural a descent. 
By dropping gradually from part to part, 
he may in time arrive at something that 
will suit his capacity. Besides the moral 



fitness of reducing all men to their proper 
level, there will be a novelty in the public 
entertainment, when we see the same 
wretched stroller, who strutted yesterday in 
Othello, creeping upon the stage to-day in 
the shape of a candle-snuffer. 

In the article of firmness, I think this 
young man's character is universally given 
up ; but I observe there is still an opinion 
maintained by some people, that, in point 
of abiUty, he is not deficient. For my own 
part. Sir, I never could discover upon what 
foundation that opinion rested. Let it be 
fairly tried by the two great, decisive tests 
of the human understanding — conduct and 
discourse. These, I know, are sometimes 
at variance with each other. An ingenious 
man may act very absurdly, and we fre- 
quently see a dull fellow conduct him- 
self with firmness and propriety. It 
is the duke's misfortune that he fails 
equally in both articles ; — that he neither 
acts with judgment, nor speaks with ability. 
Look at his conduct from the outset ; — I 
mean with a reference not to the treachery, 
but to the folly of the man. His earliest 
personal attachment in life was to the duke 
of Portland ; that friendship he has fool- 
ishly dissolved, without succeeding in his 
purpose, to oblige sir James Lowther. — 
His first public connexion was with lord 
Rockingham. That too is lost, together 
with the friendship of lord Chatham, for 
which he sacrificed the marquis. For the 
solidity of his union with lord Chatham he 
pledged himself to the public by some very 
uncommon declarations both abroad and in 
parliament. Yet from this union and his 
subsequent friendship, with lord Granbyand 
lord Camden, the cajolery of the closet 
soon seduced him. His easy virtue is not 
made for resistance. — To support his last 
plan, we have seen him renounce not only 
all these successive connexions, but every 
political idea, opinion, and principle of his 
former life, and throw himself, body and 
soul. Into the arms of the Bedfords. Here 
at least he might have stopped, since there 
was not another party in the kingdom to 
which it was possible for him to transfer his 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



453 



affections. He had gone resolutely through 
the whole drudgery of the Middlesex elec- 
tion. He had paid governor Burgoyne's 
expenses very handsomely by the sale of 
that patent to Mr Hine, which the right 
honourable the House of Commons have 
not yet thought proper to inquire into. 
He had shown fortitude enough to drop 
the prosecution of Mr Vaughan, though 
urged, insulted, braved to it by every 
stimulus that could touch the feelings of a 
man ; and, in conclusion, he had made 
himself accessory to the untimely death of 
Mr Yorke. — I say accessory, because he 
was certainly not the principal actor in that 
most atrocious business. After all. Sir, 
when it was impossible for him to add. to 
his guiltiness, a panic seizes him, he begins 
to measure his expectations by the sense of 
his deserts, a visionary gibbet appears be- 
fore his eyes, he flies from his post, sur- 
renders to another the reward due to his 
honourable services, and leaves his king 
and country to extricate themselves, if they 
can, from the distress and confusion in 
which he had involved them. 

The danger, as he conceives, being now 
pretty well over, what plan do you think 
this worthy, resolute young man pursues at 
present? While he was first lord of the 
Treasury, it is well known (and I speak 
from knowledge when I assert) that he 
never treated lord North even with the 
common civility due to his clerk. I appeal 
to lord North himself, and to every clerk 
in the Treasury (particularly to Grey Coo- 
per), whether it was not known to be a 
difficult matter for the chancellor of the 
Exchequer to obtain an audience even of 
Mr Thomas Bradshaw. Would you be- 
lieve it possible, Sir, that, after these facts, 
this very duke of Grafton can be so de- 
graded, so lost to every sensation of pride, 
of dignity, and decorum, as to be a sup- 
pliant beggar for employment to this very 
lord Nortli? Yet so it is ; and, if I were 
to tell you with what circumstances of hu- 
miliation he accompanies his suit to the 
minister, the narrative would be nauseous 
and fulsome. He is so very impatient to 



be first lord of the Admiralty, that lord 
North can hardly keep the fawning creature 
from under his feet. — Now, Sir, let any 
man living, I care not whether friend or 
foe, review this summary of his life, and 
tell us in what instance he has discovered a 
single ray of wisdom, solidity, or judgment? 
As to the other test of his abilities, I 
mean his talent for talking in public, I can 
speak with greater precision, for I have 
often had the honour of hearing him. 
With a very solemn and plausible delivery, 
he has a set of thoughts, or rather of words 
resembling thoughts, which may be applied 
indifferently, and with equal success, to all 
possible subjects. There is this singular 
advantage in his Grace's method of dis- 
course, that, if it were once admitted that 
he spoke well upon any one given topic, it 
would inevitably follow that he was qual- 
ified to deliver himself happily upon every 
subject whatsoever. He would be ipso 
facto an universal orator. Accept of the 
following specimen of his Grace's elo- 
quence, and, I promise you, you will be as 
well able to judge of his oratorial powers, 
as if you had heard him a thousand times. 
' My Lords, 
' When I came into the House this day, I 
protest I did not think it possible, — indeed 
I had formed in my own breast a resolution 
to the contrary — but, my Lords, I really 
thought it impossible that I should be 
compelled to trouble your Lordships with 
my poor thoughts upon the question before 
your Lordships. — I never do presume to 
trouble your Lordships at any time without 
always feeling a pain, — an internal regret, — 
a degree of uneasiness, which I can with 
truth assure your Lordships (and I flatter 
myself that I shall find credit with every 
noble lord, who hears me), it is not easy for 
me to have the honour of describing to 
your Lordships. My Lords, I am called 
upon, as I humbly conceive, and I appeal 
boldly not only to the candour of noble 
lords, but to your Lordships' severest 
judgment, whether I am not compelled to 
declare my sentiments, as explicitly as I 
now do, upon the motion upon your Lord- 



454 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS 



ships' table. Upon this ground, my Lords, 
I meet the noble Lord without fear, though 
r respect his superior abilities, and I pledge 
7nyseU to your Lordships for the truth of 
what I assert. Otherwise, my Lords, if 
facts were not as I have stated them, where 
will your Lordships draw the line ? My 
Lords, I am really (Tj-tonished,— yet indeed, 
my Lords, I ought not to be (Xj-tonished. 
The question has been handled with so 
much ability by other noble lords that I 
shall content ;;zyself with this simple, un- 
adorned declaration of my opinion. Yet I 
could quote cases, my Lords, which I acci- 
dentally met with this morning in the 
course of my reading, which, I doubt not, 
would convince your Lordships, if convic- 
tion were in question. But I fear 1 have 
troubled your Lordships too long. I shall 
therefore return to the leading proposition, 
which I had the honour of setting out 
with, and move for an immediate adjourn- 
ment.' 

This style, I apprehend. Sir, is what the 
learned Scriblerus calls rigmarole in logic, — 
riddlcmeree among schoolboys,— and in 
vulgar acceptation. Three blue beans in a 
blue bladder. It is the perpetual parturi- 
ence of a mountain, and the never-failing 
delivety of a mouse. 

I am. Sir, 
Your humble servant, 

DOMITIAN. 



LETTER LXXX. 



For the Public Advertiser. 

13 Dec. 1770. 

CHAPTER OF FACTS, OR MATE- 
RIALS FOR HISTORY. 

I. The House of Lords, justly 
offended at the accuracy and precision, 
with which a certain noble duke's oration ^ 
lias been delivered to the public, and con- 
cluding that the very words must have been 
taken down in writing by some foreign 
enemy, have determined to preserv^e the 

^ See the preceding letter. — Edit. 



honour of their members, and the credit of 
their eloquence, by ordering all strangers 
to be carefully excluded. 

2. But not to give offence, the exclusion 
is made general ; their Lordships very 
properly considering that the members of 
the House of Commons are no more fit to 
be trusted with the debates of a pubhc 
assembly, than the spies or emissaries of 
a foreign ambassador, or so many Jesuits 
in disguise. 

3. The right honourable the Speaker of 
the House of Lords was pleased to sum- 
mon all the Lords to attend on Monday 
last, on purpose to inform their Lordships 
collectively in what corner of the House 
each Lord separately might find waste 
paper for his necessary occasions. N. B, 
It seems to be the fate of this unhappy 
paper (which always brings nasty ideas 
with it) to be produced in a most unseemly 
manner. In the Court of King's Bench, 
the introduction of it was allowed to be 
irregular, unprecedented, and EXTRAJU- 
DICIAL. — In the House of Lords, it was 
only silly and ridiculous.— What a strange 
antipathy some men have to a record ! 
When they dare not erase, they fairly take 
post and travel otit of it. 

4. The bill for regulating contested elec- 
tions was strenuously opposed by lord 
North and the rest of the king's servants. 
Yet every one of the judges who went the 
circuit last summer, instead of instructiug 
the several grand juries in the old, legal, 
constitutional way, were ordered to sound 
the praises of the House of Commons for 
their singular virtue in passing this and the 
privilege bill. And now let it be observed, 
that in the first instance of the operation of 
this new law (the Shoreham election) not 
one of the ministers attended. Yet in- 
trusted as they are with the executive 
power of the state, it is their particular 
duty to attend, to facilitate, and inforce 
the execution of the laws ;— and these are 
the people who deafen us with their com- 
plaints of the licentiousness of the times, 
and the total want of respect into which the 
laws are fallen. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



455 



5. So far from performing this duty, it is 
a fact notorious that one Purling, a Carib- 
bee, has been encouraged by ministry to 
introduce a third candidate at Shoreham, 
and to give him four of his own votes, in 
order that by having two petitions preferred 
(a case not expressly provided for by the 
act) this wise, this salutary law may be 
defeated in the iirst instance, and have a 
contempt thrown upon it. 

6. Let it be known to posterity that when 
lord Mansfield was attacked with so much 
vehemence in the House of Commons on 
Thursday the 6th instant, not one of the 
ministry said a word in his defence. 
Nobody spoke for ihim but the Carlton- 
house junto— Jenkinson and sir Gilbert. 
(N. B. Mungo is sick.) Even Mr George 
Onslow, who in general is not very scrupul- 
ous, confined himself to the defence of Mr 
Baron Smythe, and did not utter a syllable 
in favour of poor Mansfield. These facts 
show plainly, i. How the Carlton-house 
connexion hangs together. 2. That lord 
North himself is not over and above pleased 
with the closet influence of the chief 

JUGGLER. 

The great lord Camden did yesterday 
(nth of December, 1770) address himself 
directly to lord Mansfield, and declare that 
he considered the paper delivered in by 
that lord as a challenge to himself, which 
he accepted ; that the glove was thrown 
down, and HE took it up. — That he was 
ready to meet him in defence of the laws of 
this country, and vehemently urged that a 
day might be fixed for debating the matter. 
But notwithstanding every possible instance 
made by the minority Lords, the Chief Just- 
ice shrunk from the combat, and would not 
fix any day. 



LETTER LXXXI. 

For the Public Advertiser. 

14 Dec. 1770. 

SECOND CHAPTER OF FACTS, OR 
MATERIALS FOR HISTORY. 
I. The earl of Chatham having 



asserted, on Tuesday last, in the House of 
Lords, that Gibraltar was open to an attack 
from the sea, and that, if the enemy were 
masters of the bay, the place could not 
make any long resistance, he was answered 
in the following words by that great states- 
man the earl of Sandwich : ' Supposing 
the noble Lord's argument to be well 
founded, and supposing Gibraltar to be now 
■unluckily taken, still, according to the noble 
Lord's own doctrine, it would be no great 
matter. For although we are not masters 
of the sea at present, we probably shall be 
so sometime or other, and then, my Lords, 
there wiU be no difficulty in retaking Gib- 
raltar.' N. B. This earl is a privy counsel- 
lor, and appeared to have concerted this 
satisfactory answer with Peg Trentham at 
the fire-side, 

2. Sir Edward Hawke, on Wednesday 
last, gave the House of Commons a very 
pompous account of the fleet. Being asked 
why, if our navy was so numerous and 
ready for service, a squadron was not sent 
to Gibraltar and the West Indies? his 
answer was candid :— ' That for his part he 
did not understand sending ships abroad, 
when, for aught he knew, they might be 
wanted to defend our own coast.' — Such is 
the care taken of our possessions abroad ! 
— One great minister tells us they may be 
easily retaken ; — another assures us that 
they cannot be defended. Will that man 
who sleepeth never awake, imtil destruction 
comes upon him ! . Has he no friend, no 
servant, to draw his curtain, until Troy is 
actually in flames ! 

3. Lord North informed the House of 
Commons on Wednesday that, although 
he wished for an honourable accommoda- 
tion, he thought it his duty to tell the 
I-Iouse, that he feared war was too proba- 
ble : that he intended to move for a further 
augmentation of ten thousand seamen, and 
that, at any rate, he should advise the 
keeping up the naval and military force 
upon the augmented estabhshment, for 
that, notwithstanding the language held by 
the French and Spanish ministers, there 
was, all over France and Spain, the 



4S6 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



greatest appearance of hostile preparations. 

4. Tlie riot in the House of Lords has 
shoclced the delicacy of sir Fletcher Norton. 
Upon occasion of some clamour yesterday, 
he called to them with all the softness of a 
bassoon : Pray, gentlemen, be orderly ; you 
are ahnost as bad as the other House. 

5. On Tuesday last, lord Camden de- 
livered into the House of Lords a paper 
containing three questions, relative to the 
doctrine laid down in lord Mansfield's 
paper, which he desired that Lord would 
answer, if he could. Lord Mansfield was 
very angry at being taken by surprise upon 
a subject he had never had an opportunity 



^ Nerva was a writer in favour of lord Mans- 
field upon the subject of his conduct in the cause 
of the. king against Woodfall for printing Ju- 
Nius's letter to his Majesty; as well as for his 
posterior proceedings in the House of Peers upon 
the matter of this cause ; in the course of which 
he thought proper, as has been observed already, 
to summons the House specially, in order to 
afford him an opportunity of fully explaining 
himself upon this point : an opportunity, how- 
ever, of which he was even at last afraid to avail 
himself. See p. 11 3, note. 

The letter of Nerva, above alluded to, was 
addressed to lord Chatham, and appeared in the 
Public Advertiser, Dec. 14, 1770. The follow- 
ing is a copy. 

For the P-iihlic Advertiser. 

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD CHATHAM. 

My Lord, 14 December, 1770. 

I SAW on Monday, in a certain great 
assembly, the most striking contrast of character 
that ever was exhibited on any public occasion. 
On the one hand, decency, propriety, dignity, 
wisdom, and temper ; on the other, presumption, 
insolence, absurdity, meanness, folly, ignorance, 
and rancour. Your Lordship sat for one of the 
pictures, and I am sorry to say, it was not for 
the best. To speak without metaphor, what 
demon, save the demon of malice, could inspire 
you with an objection to the fair, the equitable 
information which lord Mansfield offered to the 
House ? The proposal itself, the terms in which 
it was conceived, would have conciliated a bar- 
barian ; but your animosity is worse than a bar- 
barian's, and betrays the principle from which it 
springs ! In an unprecedented, extrajudicial, 
captious, and insidious manner, you had taken 
occasion to censure that great man's opinions in 
the court of justice where he presides. Though 
you endeavoured to take him by surprise, that you 
might catch at some unfair advantage from his 
answer, you were baffled and disappointed. He 
answered you with the noble simplicity of inno- 
cence, and the wisdom that never forsakes the 
}ne?is co7iscia recti. He fairly stated his opin- 



of considering, and that he valued the con- 
stitutional liberty of the subject too much to 
answer interrogatories. 



LETTER LXXXIL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 December, 1770. 

As far as assertion goes, no man 
argues better than your correspondent 
Nei-ua.'^ If we are contented to take his 



ions, and the principles on which they were 
grounded, and, without recrimination, he threw 
down his glove to you, and to all, daring you to 
convict him of an error, upon fair and legal ar- 
gument. 

He did more ; to prevent that misrepresent- 
ation and misconstruction which might arise from 
words spoken, he delivered to the House the 
opinion given by him in court in the case alluded 
to in writing ; candidly and formally declaring, 
that he meant to ground no motion upon it, but 
merely for the information of every member, that 
those who had not steeled their minds against 
conviction, might be convinced how falsely the 
censure had been made, and that your Lordship 
and your party might have a more open ground 
of objection to the doctrine which the writing 
contained. 

When I give this account of lord Mansfield's 
reasons for submitting this paper to the House, 
I do wrong to the moderation of his expressions ; 
but I speak to a man whose conscience teils him, 
that the distinction between him and those who 
are open to conviction, is but too well founded. 
Be that as it may, one would have thought you 
could wish for nothing more, than that a person 
whose doctrines you arraigned should give them 
under his hand, and dare you to the trial of their 
truth. Instead of closing with the proposal, you 
rose up and objected to the delivery of the paper 
as informal ; but it is no new thing with you, 
after you have made a malicious and groundless 
attack, when you see it likely to produce conse- 
quences, to shrink back, and shelter yourself 
under some pitiful evasion ; catching at form, or 
any other twig, to save you from the effects of 
your own folly and ill-nature. 

But if you had made an end here, your audi- 
ence had gone away, convinced only, that you 
were happy to get out of the scrape into which 
you had brought yourself by your unprecedented 
and unjust attack on lord Mansfield. But as if 
you were determined that every man who hears 
you should bear witness to your rambling in- 
consistency and ignorance, you did not make an 
end here. After having affirmed that the paper 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



word for proof, lord Chatham is a hare- 
brained, desperate old fellow, and lord 
Mansfield the very quintessence of integrity 
wisdom, moderation, and firmness. I won- 
der he did not assure us on the same found- 
ation, that this worthy judge never drank 
the Pretenders health upon his knees ; or 
that his brother was not secretary to that 
most catholic Prince ; or that Peg Trent- 
ham's father had not his left foot in the 
stirrup in the year 1715, to go off to what 
he thought the best side of the question • 
all this too I suppose we shall be told is 
mere fiction, mere inference of law, and the 
suggestion of the devil ; but settincr aside 
ornament, let us look a httle to matters of 
fact. 



457 



could not be received, after declaring you knew 
not what was censured in the proceedings of the 
courts of justice, nor against whom in pfrticular 
that censure was directed, after having declared 
also your ignorance of what the paper fonSned 

Fou ^a^id'lh "'° ^ discussion 'of'it7°corins: 
Vou said the paper contained an extraiudicial 
and unprecedented opinion, and that thi j dg. 
ment was not warranted by the record and the 

ope"rar'"An ?h" "^"' '^^ Judgn.ent' was to 
operate. All this you asserted m terms unbe- 
.com.ng the place in which you stood, unbecom 

and highly improper to be used by one who 
spoke about what he did not understand All 

cienr tT' ^'^'^ ^°^^ ^--^ ^Snorant of evely 
Sll In;^ ?°""'''^' '^'^'''^y sniarts, and 

n politics and finance. Your ignorance of 
the law may not perhaps product such fata 
consequences, but it M^as such on the occasion 

has^old °hi ^V^°"'' d^P^"dant, the man who 
has sold himself to you soul and body, who 
trenibles at his tyrant's frown, durst not sav a 
word in defence of your position, nor e"lty a 
aShy" '"'^^^'""'- '« ^^^^^ '^^ ^^-^ of yo^u? 
I know you are not ashamed of the grossest 
Ignorance and absurdity ; but I would fsk ton 

had TrllTl- '^'•^" ^"'^i ^'■^^^ '-n, whom ^ou 
and vTh i ° injuriously, rose up ro explain 
and with the most amiable moderation and I 
intuitive perspicuity, pointed out your m^^take ' 
and rectified your blunder, had you noTeelm "^ 

ou^^-;i^-K)j;--r£?:.?;^^^^^' 

^our /..,, Did .,ot Ehrd'emonTf TaaioTS ' 

Z:7JT''''^'''''' '"^""^ yourheart,'Snd le!ave 
yon in the momentary possession at least of ' 
be tterangels? If not, you are unhappy .Xd 

vou tZl-J"'^"''' ^°",'- ^^'"'1'- whis'per d to 
>ou that your opponent's temper was an arc^u- 
ment of Ins contempt ; and to sting you to mad- 



For what reason lord Mansfield laid his 
paper upon the table, he best knows. He 
gave none to the House of Lords, except 
that he thought calling them together was 
the most compendious way of informing 
them where each Lord might, if he pleased, 
procure a copy of his charge to the jury in 
VV oodfall's cause. This was the whole, for 
he made no motion whatsoever, nor did he 
pretend to say that, in their corporate capa- 
city as a House of Peers, they could take 
the least notice of the paper. Now Sir it 
remains with lord Mansfield to give us an 
example, if he can, of any respectable Peer 
having ever moved for a call of the House 
for so trifling, so nugatory, so ridiculous a 
purpose. I think it strongly deserves these 



ness suggested that your brutal violence was 
unable to rufiie the steady tenor of his soul I 
vZ '^V'^ ^ galling Reflection to a Sian of 
e'v^e^^ndtgni^y" '''''' ''^ ^°"^^' ^^^ ^^^^^ 
JL^^'l '"""^ ^i%"^otive for calmness and moder- 
ation. It was taking indeed vengeance but a 
heroic vengeance Were it your fol-tune to ca ch 
him at a fair advantage (an event which can 

Wi'th' whT'"^ k'°" ''''■"""^'y ^-"'d you use ft ! 
With what vehemence would you not pre^s i 
home! How would you exaggerate a molehi 
nesVr^'h"^' "-^ ^^" heaven'and earth to wi^ 
at an end "^^ 'p'^" T' ''"'"'^d' ^"d our liberties 
at an end ! But all men are not born to be 
mv™^' T^^^ '""'' """did, just, or wise. You 
my Lord, have imposed long enough on the 
world ; your faculties have been greatly mis- 

ialetuf\''°"'r?r" ^^r l^-" >"istakL™or 
talents, your facility and versatility for parts 

ff ki?ow1"d" *' "T''^ ^''-' '^ ^ harsher rme) 
Datrh v'^"' """"^ ^'""^ precipitation for dis- 
^^n. , , %'l ^ memorable exception to the 
general rule of humanity, for years and exercise 
have not endowed you with experience or wis- 
dom and you possess together with the cM 

Pera e vo!fh' A, ^"', ^T\''^ '^'^ =^"d intem- 
hL IV ^u h-u Already hath your furious pro- 
digality brought this nation to the brink of ruin. 

arromnlif 'f /" ^'°^'' ''"P'°"^ intention to 
accomplish what you have already well nioh 
performed. Retire from the stage, and try In 
retirement to repent of the evtls you have 

C'nS h °" 7T ■?""'7-- ^f >"^"'- P' 0"d heart 
cannot brook the idea of sincere repentance, let 
the repeated defeats which you have la ely 
deJ/f /" '^ P™-'^ec.ition of your outrageous 
designs, teach you to assume a virtue thou-h 
you have It not.-By that appearance of con- 
trition, and by that only, you may soften the 
odium which must attend you to the grave, and 
alleviate the load of indignation which posterity 
will lay on your memory. Nerva.— Edit. 



4S8 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



epithets, and after much consideration I 
can find but one possible way of reconciling 
the fact with the cunning understanding of 
the man. When he summoned the House, 
he never meant to do what he afterwards 
did ; some qualm, some terror intervened, 
and forced him hastily to alter his design, 
and to substitute a silly, absurd measure in 
the place of a dangerous one. As for his 
having dared lord Chatham to a trial of his 
doctrines, I should be glad to know by 
whom the combat was refused. Lord 
Chatham attacked him directly upon the 
spot, and on the very next day it is known 
to the whole world, that the great lord 
Cam.den addressed him in the following 
words : ' I consider the paper delivered in 
by the noble Lord upon the woolsack as a 
challenge directed personally to me, and I 
accept of it ; — he has thrown down the 
glove, and I take it up. In direct contra- 
diction to him, I maintain that his doctrine 
is not the law of England. I am ready to 
enter into the debate whenever the noble 
Lord will fix a day for it. I desire, and 
insist, that it may be an early one. — The 
devil's in it if this be declining the trial : 
but what was the consequence ? Lord 
Mansfield, after an hour's shuffling and 
evasion, finding himself pushed to the last 
extremity, cried out in an agony of torture 
and despair, No, I will 7iot fix a day — / 
will not pledge myself. 

As to lord Chatham's declaration con- 
cerning the irregular production of lord 
Mansfield's opinion in the Court of King's 
Bench, I am sorry to say that your corre- 
spondent Nerva neither knows the fact, nor 
understands the argument. He talks of a 
judgment in a cause Vv'here no judgment 
was ever given. Leaving therefore this poor 
man to his own unhappy reveries, let me 
state briefly to the public what was the fact, 
and what was the irregularity of the pro- 
ceeding upon it. 

The verdict given at Nisi Prius in the 
King and Woodfall was, guilty of printing 

^ The whole of this paragraph is taken from a 
speech of lord Chatham, as quoted by Junius in 
a note to his Preface, p. 122. See also in rc- 



and publishing only^ A motion in arrest 
of judgment was made by the defendant's 
counsel, grounded upon the ambiguity of 
the verdict. At the same time a motion 
was made by the counsel for the crown, for 
a I'ule upon the defendant to show cause 
why the verdict should not be entered up 
according to the legal import of the words. 
On both motions a rule to show cause was 
granted, and soon after the matter was 
argued before the Court of King's Bench. 
Lord Mansfield, when he delivered the 
opinion of the court upon the verdict, went 
regularly through the whole of the proceed- 
ings at Nisi Prius, as well the evidence 
that had been given, as his own charge to 
the jury. This proceeding would have been 
very proper had a motion been made of 
either side for a new trial, because either a 
verdict given contrary to evidence, or an 
improper charge by the judge at Nisi Prius, 
is held to be a sufficient ground for granting 
a new trial ; but when a motion is made in 
arrest of judgment, or for establishing the 
verdict, by entering it up according to the 
legal import of the words, it must be on the 
ground of something appearing c/^ the re- 
cord; and the court, in considering whether 
the verdict shall be established or not, are 
so confined to the record that they cannot 
take notice of any thing that does not ap- 
pear on the face of it ; to make use of the 
legal phrase, they cannot travel out of the 
record. Lord Mansfield did travel out of the 
record. I affirm therefore with lord Chat- 
ham, that his conduct was irregular, ex- 
trajudicial, and unprecedented ; and I am 
sure there is not a lawyer in England that 
will contradict me. His real motive for 
doing what he knew to be wrong, ^vas, that 
he might have an opportunity of telling the 
pubhc extrajudicially, that the other three 
judges agreed with him in the doctrine laid 
down in his charge. 

When you have read this paper, I am 
sure you will join with me in opinion, that 
to support an uniform system of falsehood 



lation to the same, lord Mansfield's charge to 
the jury, on the trial here alluded to, ui the 
editor's note, p. 117. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



459 



requires greater parts than even those of 
lord Mansfield. 

PHALARIS. 



LETTER LXXXIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 24 December, 1770. 

Without attempting to account 
for all the political changes, which have 
happened since his Majesty's auspicious 
accession to the throne, it requires but httle 
sagacity to observe that the general princi- 
ple, from which they have aiiben, is uniform 
and consistent with itself. A prince of the 
House of Brunswick searches for the consola- 
tion and endearments of private sociahtyand 
friendship in the loyal hearts of Jacobites, 
Tories and Scotchmen : — a devout prince, 
whose sincere, unaffected piety would have 
done honour even to Charles the First, in- 
trusts the public government of his affairs 
to Grafton, North, Hahfax, and Sandwich. 
The first choice naturally led to the second. 
The private convivial hours of Jonathan 
Wild were happily unbent in the company 
of the lower adepts in pilfering and petty 
larceny. In public, he resumed his state, 
and never appeared without an attendant 
knot of highwaymen and assassins. 

I congratulate this country upon the re- 
turn of the earl of Sandwich to a station, 
in \^■hich he has heretofore given complete 
satisfaction to his royal master.^ It is the 
more pleasing, because it was unexpected. 
A gracious and a truly religious prince had 
often declared that this was the only man 
in his dominions, whom he never would 
suffer to enter the cabinet. He was tender 
of the morals of his ministers, and the Bed- 
fords had delicacy enough to acquiesce in 
the truth of the objection. I feel for his 



^ The office of foreign minister, vacant bj' the 
removal of the earl of Rochford to the home de- 
partment, and which, before its occupation by 
the latter, had been held for two or three years 
by lord viscount Weymouth. — Edit. 

^ Chamier was afterwards appointed chief 
secretary to lord Earrington, through the interest 



Majesty's distress. To what a melancholy 
condition must he be reduced, when he is 
forced to apply to the earl of Sandwich as 
the last resource, the only prop remaining 
to stop the fall of government ! Lord 
Weymouth, it seems, retires perfectly satis- 
fied, and determined to support men and 
measures as vigorously, as if he had con- 
tinued in employment. Good-humoured 
creature ! What a pity it is, that he cannot 
submit to the drudgery of receiving seven 
thousand pounds a year ! The king presses 
him to accept of some other post, where 
there is neither labour nor responsibility ; — 
any thing, in short, provided he will not 
fling the pubhc mortification upon his royal 
master, of quitting his service, at so critical 
a conjuncture. — Still he resists ; — still he 
refuses ; but though he quits all connexion 
with ministers and their practices, it is im- 
possible to interrupt his complacency and 
good humour. — By this nobleman's retreat, 
the nation has made some capital acquisi- 
tions. To say nothing of my lord Sand- 
wich, what do you think of the amiable 
Mr Bamber Gasco3'ne, and that well edu- 
cated, genteel young broker, I\Ir Chamier ?2 
The first is to thunder in the senate ; — the 
second, in quality of secretary, is to direct 
the most secret and important manoeuvres 
of government. — Well done, my lord Sand- 
wich ! — Your company, I'll be sworn, will 
be no reproach to you. But was there no 
employment to be found for Tommy Brad- 
shaw's sister,^ as well as his brother-in-law .' 
She too understands the disposal of places ; 
— at least his fraternal affection has given 
her the credit of it. — 

Give me leave, Mr Woodfall, to ask you 
a serious question. How long do you 
think it possible for this management to 
last? How long is this great country to be 
governed by a boot and a petticoat ? — by 
the infamous tools of a Scotch exile, and 
her Royal Highness the princess dowager of 

of ]\Ir Bradshaw and his master the duke of 
Grafton, at that time again in administration, as 
lord privy seal. See Private Letters, Nos. 52 
and 56. — Edit. 

3 See Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. LXXL and 
LXXIV.— Edit. 



460 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF. JUNIUS. 



Wales? — by North, Ellis, Barrington, Jen- 
kinson, Hillsborough, Jerry Dyson, and 
Sandwich ? I will answer you with pre- 
cision. It will last, until there is a general 
insurrection of the English nation, or until 
the House of Bourbon have collected their 
strength and strike you to the heart. 

DOMITIAN. 

P. S. Tell the duke of Grafton, that, if 
he should dare to entertain the most distant 
thought of the Admiralty, the whole affair 
of Nine's patent shall be revived and pub- 
lished, with an accumulation of evidence. 
He at least shall be kept under. His 
Ciceronian eloquence shall not save him. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 

For the Public Advertiser. 

20 December, 1770. 
A CARD. 
Phalaris presents his compli- 
ments to Sir ■ -■ , is preparing for the 

press a faithful account of Mr Justice's 
amours with the lady Williams ; and as he 
wishes not to give a plain narrative too 
much the air of a romance, would be very 
glad to be furnished with aiiy material 
facts, which Mr Justice may think proper 
to have inserted ; but in order not to give 
Mr Justice any unnecessary trouble, Pha- 
laris thinks it proper to apprise him of 
those circumstances, in which he [Phalaris), 
is already particularly instructed, viz., How 
Mr Justice was distressed for want of prac- 
tice ; how he was impatient at trying a long 
cause in a hot day at Hereford ; how he 
made a declaration at a public dinner, con- 
firmed by execrations, that he would marry 
the devil with money, rather than practise 
the law without it ; how he was introduced 
to lady Williams ; how, upon sufficient 
deliberation, he preferred her ladyship to 
the devil ; how he explained his tender pas- 
sion ; how, with a gallant impatience, he 
hastened the marriage ceremony before he 
saw the writings of her estate ; how he 



stepped into a hackney coach, one fine 
morning, in a suit of white cloth hned with 
green velvet ; how he had a levee of visitors 
at his gate the day after his auspicious 
nuptials ; how lady Williams complained 
next morning ; how she retired to her 
country-seat near Hereford ; how Mr Jus- 
tice pursued her in company with a certain 
strong lady with a strait waistcoat ; how 
both parties, with great cordiality, signed 
articles of separation ; and how Mr Justice 
retired to Ireland, without taking leave of 
his friends. 

Phalaris hopes Mr Justice will have no 
objection to the following motto : 

Felices ter, et aniplitis, 
Quos irrupta tenet copula. 



LETTER LXXXV. 

For the Public Advertiser. 

INTELLIGENCE EXTRAORDINARY. 

9 January, 1771. 
Sir Edward Hawke resigned this 
morning. The earl of Sandwich is to suc- 
ceed to the Admiralty. — His Majesty, who 
judges of men by their moral characters, 
has discovered at last that this nobleman is 
as well qualified for one post as another. 
His religion would do honour to a mitre. 
If he were archbishop of Canterbury, the 
princess dowager of Wales could not do 
better than make him her father confessor. 
In the primitive spirit of Christianity, they 
might confess to one another. Who is to 
be secretary of state is not yet known ; for 
we all agree that lord Suffolk ^ has too 
much sense and spirit to prostitute his 
virgin character in such a * * * * * * 
as St James's. — When a beautiful woman 
yields to temptation, let her consult her 
pride, though she forgets her virtue. — To 
be corrupted by such a maquereau as 
Whately would turn the appetite of Moll 
Flanders. This poor man, with the talents 
of an attorney, sets up for an ambassador, 



^ See Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. XCVI. and 
XCVII.— Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



461 



and with the agility of colonel Bodens un- 
dertakes to be a courier. Indeed, Tom ! 
you have betrayed yourself too soon. — Mr 
Grenville, your friend, your patron, your 
benefactor, who raised you from a depth 
(compared to which even Bradshaw's 
family stands on an eminence), was hardly 
cold in his grave, when you solicited the 
office of go-between to lord North. You 
could not, in my eyes, be more contempti- 
ble, though you were convicted (as I dare 
say you might be) of having constantly be- 
trayed him in his lifetime. — Since I know 
your employment, be assured I shall watch 
you attentively. Every journey you under- 
take, every message you carry, shall be im- 
mediately laid before the pubUc. The event 
of your ingenious management will be this, 
— that lord North, finding you cannot serve 
him, will give you nothing. From the other 
party, you have just as much detestation to 
expect as can be united with the profound- 
est contempt. Tom Whately, take care of 
yourself ! ^ 



LETTER LXXXVI. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER, 

Sir, II January, 1771. 

Your correspondent W. is equally 
unfortunate in his attack upon Junius and 
his defence of lord Mansfield. Junius 
does not enter into the particular merits of 
the Grosvenor cause, but strikes at the 
general doctrine delivered by the judge in 
his charge to the jury ; viz. that, in a pro- 
secution for criminal conversatioti, the jury, 
when they assess the damages, are not to re- 
gard the quality and fortune of the parties, 
but are to consider the question abstractedly 
as a question between A. and 'Q. If this 
doctrine be true in one instance, it wjU be 
applicable to every case of criminal con- 
versation ; and the consequences of it will 
be, that a nobleman with ten thousand a 



^ Mr Whately had been private secretary 
Mr G. Grenville. — Edit. 



year shall pay no greater damages than a 
peasant, who labours for a shilling a day ; 
or vice versa, that the seduction of a duchess 
and of a milliner stand upon the same foot- 
ing, in regard to the compensation due to 
the injured husband. — In a moral view, I 
confess, the crime is the same. The pun- 
ishment annexed to it, though not matter 
of positive law, cannot be regulated by the 
rules of morahty. It must depend on cus- 
tom, reputation, and the circumstances of 
the case. The equity of the verdict must 
be measured by the distinctions of rank 
and fortune, admitted and established in 
society, since it is evident that the penalty 
or satisfaction sufficient for one man, might 
hardly be felt by another. It is the general 
doctrine of lord Mansfield, which Junius 
very truly calls false and absurd ; and I 
know that it was received in Westminster 
Hall with universal shame and astonish- 
ment. 

As to the idea of lord Mansfield's inclin- 
ing to favour lord Grosvenor, it is so pre- 
posterously false and ridiculous, that it 
would be entirely undeserving of notice, 
but for one consideration , viz. — that, if 
it were true, it stabs the chief justice to 
the heart. — Lord Mansfield is charged with 
gross and infamous partiality to the de- 
fendant ; — the defence made for him is, 
that he was grossly and infamously partial 
to the plaintiff.— Let his friends take their 
choice. Every honest man will equally de- 
spise and detest such a judge, whichever 
way his bad passions incline him. 

As to the merits of the Grosvenor cause, 
they are of no consequence in the present 
question. If it be necessary, however, I 
am ready to maintain that the verdict was 
supported by the evidence, and the damages 
very moderate. If not, why did not Mans- 
field order a new trial ? When time, and 
place, and circumstance are proved, there 
remains but one possible plea for the duke 
of Cumberland ; and that, by the bye, is 
rather a whimsical one, applied to a boy of 
one and twenty. Yet, for aught I know, it 
may be very true, that with all his atten- 
tion to the dear little hair, he was incapa- 



46. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ble of taking the fairest opportunity by the 
forelock. 

ANTI-W. 



LETTER LXXXVII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 17 J'-'i^- T-77'^- 

If sir Edward Hawke had follow- 
ed the advice and example of his friends, 
he would not have been reduced to the dis- 
honourable necessity of quitting the direc- 
tion of the English navy, at the very 
moment it is going to be employed against 
the foreign enemies of England. To be 
left in employment after Chatham, Granby, 
and Camden had retired ;— to continue in 
it in company with Grafton, North, Gower, 
and Hillsborough ;— and at last to be suc- 
ceeded by lord Sandwich, are circumstances 
too disgraceful to admit of aggravation. 
It is natural to sympathize in the distresses 
of a brave man, and to lament that a noble 
estate of reputation should be squandered 
away in debts of dishonour contracted with 
sharpers. 

His Majesty, God bless him ! has now 
got rid of every man whose former services 
or present scruples could be supposed to 
give offence to her Royal Highness the 
princess dowager of Wales. The security 
of our civil and religious liberties cannot be 
more happily provided for than while lord 
Mansfield pronounces the law, and lord 
Sandwich represents the religion of St 
James's. Such law and such religion are 
too closely united to suffer even a moment- 
ary intervention of common honesty be- 
tween them. ■ Her Royal Highness's scheme 
of government, formed long before her 
husband's death, is now accomplished. 
She has succeeded in disuniting every party, 
and dissolving every connexion ; and, by 
the mere influence of the crown, has formed 
an administration, such as it is, out of the 
refuse of them all. There are two leading 
principles in the politics of St James's, 
which will account for almost every mea- 
sure of government since the king's acces- 



sion. The first is, that .the prerogative is 
sufficient to make a lacquey a prime min- 
ister, and to maintain him in that post, 
without any regard to the welfare or to the 
opinion of the people.— The second is, that 
none but persons, insignificant in them- 
selves, or of tainted reputation, should be 
brought into employment. Men of greater 
consequence and abilities will have opinions 
of their own, and will not submit to the 
meddling, unnatural ambition of a mother, 
who grasps at unlimited power, at the ha- 
zard of her son's destruction. They will 
not suffer measures of pubhc utility, which 
have been resolved upon in council, to be 
checked and controlled by a secret influ- 
ence in the closet. Such men consequently 
will never be called upon but in cases of 
extreme necessity. When that ceases, they 
find their places no longer tenable. To 
answer the purposes of an ambitious wo- 
man, an administration must be formed of 
more pliant materials,— of men, who, hav- 
ing no connexion with each other, no per- 
sonal interest, no weight or consideration 
with the people, may separately depend 
upon the smiles of the crown alone for their 
advancement to high offices, and for their 
continuance there. If such men resist the 
princess dowager's pleasure, his Majesty 
knows that he may dismiss them without 
risking any thing from their resentment. 
His wisdom suggests to them that, if he 
were to choose his ministers for any of 
those qualities which might entitle them to 
pubhc esteem, the nation might take part 
with them, and resent their dismission. 
As it is, whenever he changes his servants, 
he is sure to have the people, in that in- 
stance, of his side. ! 

I love and respect our gracious sovereign 
too much to suppose it possible that he 
should be any thing more than passive in 
forming and supporting such a system of 
government ; and even this acquiescence 
of the best of princes I am ready to attri- 
bute to a most amiable quality implanted in 
him by nature, and carefully cultivated by 
art,— unUmited duty and obedience to his 
dear mother.— Few nations are in the pre 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



463 



dicament that we are, to have nothing to 
complain of but the filial virtues of our 
sovereign. Charles the First had the same 
implicit attachment to his spouse ; — but his 
worthy parent was in her grave. It were 
to be wished that the parallel held good in 
all the circumstances. 

In respect to her Royal Highness, I shall 
deliver my sentiments without any false 
tenderness or reserve. I consider her not 
only as the original creating cause of the 
shameful and deplorable condition of this 
country, but as a being, whose operation is 
uniform and permanent ; — who watches, 
with a kind of providential malignity, over 
the work of her hands, to correct, improve, 
and preserve it. If the strongest appear- 
ances may be relied on, this lady has now 
brought her schemes to perfection. Every 
office in government is filled with men who 
are known to be her creatures, or by mere 
cyphers incapable of resistance. Is it con- 
ceivable that any thing, less than a deter- 
mined plan of drawing the Vv'hole pov/er of 
the crown into her own hands, could have 
collected such an administration as the pre- 
sent ?— Who is lord North ?— The son of a 
poor unknown earl ;— who four years ago 
was a needy commissioner of the Treasury 
for the benefit of a subsistence, and who 
would have accepted a commission of 
hackney coaches upon the same terms. 
The pohtics of Carlton House — Finances 
picked up in Mr Grenville's ante-chamber, 
and the elocution of a Demosthenes, en- 
deavouring to speak plain with pebbles in 
his mouth, fonn the stuffing of that figure, 
that calls itself minister, that does homage 
to the princess dowager, and says. Madam, 
I am your man. 

The stage was deprived of a promising 
actor when poor lord Hillsborough gave his 
mind to politics. Yet his theatrical talents 
have been of use to his fortime. The 
princess dowager saw what part this man 
was capable of acting ; and with regard to 
himself, it signified but little whether he 
represented Prince Volscius at Drury-lane, 
or secretary of state at St James's. 

It is not pretended that lord Rochford's 



abilities are of the explicit kind. Yet from 
a chargd d'affaires at Turin, the all-power- 
ful guiding hand has raised him to be 
secretary of state. The princess dowager 
knows, better than we do, what positive 
good quahties this nobleman possesses. 
The pubhc only knows that he is a mute in 
the House of Lords, and that he is destitute 
of fortune, interest, and connexions. To 
do him justice, he has all the negative 
qualifications that constitute merit at Carl- 
ton House. 

The character of third secretary is not yet 
disposed of. Public suspicion gives lord 
Hillsborough a formidable rival. At the 
opening of the theatre young Suffolk is to 
be produced. Prince Prettyman can cant 
very near as well as Prince Volscius. Such 
a pair of actors make tragedy ridiculous. 
Our enemies at least will laugh at the cata- 
strophe. But this young man shall be left 
for abler hands. It requires no vulgar pen 
to do justice to such a strain of monstrous 
prostitution. 

Why is that wretched creature lord Towns- 
hend maintained in Ireland ? Is it not 
universally known that the ignorance, pre- 
sumption, and incapacity of that man have 
rained the king's affairs in Ireland ?— that 
he has, in a great measure, destroyed the 
political dependence of that country upon 
Great Britain? — But he too is an uncon- 
nected being, without any hope of support 
but in the protection of lord Bute and the 
princess dowager. 

Why is not a commander-in-chief ap- 
pointed ? Because there is an insignificant 
secretary at war, who has no chance of con- 
tinuing in the receipt of ^^2500 a year, but 
by making himself the instrument through 
which the princess dowager disposes of 
every valuable commission in the army. 

Why have we not a master-general of 
the ordnance? Because the gentle Con- 
way knows how to be as pliant as lord 
Barrington. 

Why is there no chancellor ? Partly be- 
cause there is a convenience in bribing four 
of the judges with the emoluments of that 
office, and partly because no man of credit 



464 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



in the profession will submit to act with the 
present infamous administration. 

What merit has lord Halifax? — The 
issue of general warrants ; — the opposition 
of his privilege for years together to the 
laws of his country ; — prostitution in private 
life, and poverty in the extreme. 

Why is the king so fond of having lord 
Bristol about his person 9 If the duties of 
the noble lord's office had a closer connex- 
ion with the title of it, as usually pro- 
nounced, I should understand his Majesty, 
and admire his attention in paying so 
delicate a compliment to his Lordship's 
amours. The last question I would ask is, 
by what kind of service or ability the earl of 
Sandwich is distinguished ? Prostitution 
and poverty may be found in other subjects, 
and appearances saved by a decent form- 
ality of behaviour. The choice and prefer- 
ence of the most profligate character in the 
kingdom may suit well enough with the 
substantial purposes of Carlton House, but 
how does it consist with the hypocritical 
decorum of St James's ? What opinion are 
we to entertain of the piety, chastity, and 
integrity of the best of princes, when, in 
the face of England and of all Europe, he 
takes such a man as Sandwich to his bosom ! 
—Let us hear no more of the piety of St 
James's. — To talk of morals or devotion in 
such company is a scandalous insult to 
common sense, and a still more scandalous 
mockery of religion. 

The princess dowager having now car- 
ried her plan of administration into effect, 
it is not to be wondered that she should be 
very unwilling to expose herself and her 
schemes to the uncertain events of a foreign 
war. She knows that a disaster abroad 
would not only defeat the cunning plan of 
female avarice and ambition ; but that it 
might reach further. — The mothers of our 
kings have heretofore been impeached ; 
and if the precedents are not so complete 
as they should be, they require and will 
admit of improvement. 

To maintain this lady in her present state 
of power and security, there is no insult, no 
indignity, to which the king of Britain must 



not submit, — no condition, however humil- 
iating, which the king and the nation must 
not accept of without resentment. — At this 
point, however, her cunning forsakes her. 
Both she and her ministers deceive them- 
selves grossly if they imagine that any con- 
cessions can secure peace with an enemy 
determined upon war. — She may disgrace 
the English nation. She may dishonour 
her son, and persuade him to forfeit his 
right to precedence among the sovereigns 
of Europe. The man who receives a blow, 
and does not return it (whether he be a 
king or a private person), from that moment 
stands degraded from his natural rank and 
condition. If he be a young man, his 
infamy is immortal. — Yet I am ready to 
confess that where two nations upon the 
whole are peaceably disposed, there is a 
degree of slight, and ill humour, and even 
of injury, which, for the sake of peace, may 
and ought to be dissembled : but a direct, 
positive, intended insult must always be 
resented. To flatter ourselves that the 
moderation of the Spaniards will be pro- 
portioned to our forbearance, or that, be- 
cause we have submitted tamely to one' 
affront, they will therefore avoid offering us 
a second, would be arguing in contradic- 
tion to all reason and experience. If Falk- 
land Island had never existed, the rancour 
of the Spaniards would not have failed to 
discover itself in some other mode of hos- 
tiUty. Their whole history, since the ac- 
cession of Philip the Vth, is a continued 
proof of a rooted antipathy to the name of 
Englishman ; and I am justified, by a series 
of indisputable facts, in affirming that from 
the treaty of Utrecht to this hour, there has 
never been a single instance of common 
justice or decency, much less of cordiality 
or friendship, in the conduct of the court of 
Madrid towards this country. Lord Sand- 
wich declared a month ago, in full parlia- 
ment, that Gibraltar was a place of no con- 
sequence, and immediately afterwards the 
princess dowager makes him secretary of 
state. Whoever compares the sale of 
Dunkirk with this nobleman's character, 
must be very much of a sceptic, if he enter- 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



46s 



tains any doubt about the fate of Gibraltar. 
But neither this sacrifice, nor even that of 
Jamaica, would be sufficient to produce a 
solid, permanent union with Spain. They 
may despise us more, but they will never 
hate us less. 

By the princess dowager's management, 
instead of avoiding a war we make it cer- 
tain. A little spirit at first might perhaps 
have intimidated the Spaniards. Our no- 
torious weakness and shameful subn.ission 
have only served to encourage and confirm 
them in their resokition. In point of hon- 
our, we have let the proper moment of 
resentment pass away. The royal and 
national honour is so irretrievably stained, 
that it cannot now be recovered by the 
most vigorous measures of revenge. — From 
her Royal Highness's government in time 
of peace, we may well conclude in what 
manner she will conduct a war. Gifted as 
she is, she could hardly fail of success, if 

^ This letter refers to the much agitated dis- 
pute concerning the Malouine, or Falkland's 
Islands, which, without any formal recognition, 
had, for many years after their first occupation 
by captain Byron in 1765, been quietly suffered 
by Spain to remain in the hands of his Britannic 
Majesty, who had erected a small fort on the 
coast of the chief of them named Port Egmont. 
In June, 1769, however, without any complaint 
or notice on the part of the Spanish government 
to the court of St James's, a forcible debarkation 
was effected on the coast of Port Egmont, by a 
Spanish armament from Port Solidad, in Buenos 
Ayres ; the whole mass of islands was claimed 
by the commander of the expedition in the name 
of his most Catholic Majesty, whose right was 
formally asserted to the whole JNIagellanic region; 
the small body of English troops stationed at 
Port Egmont was compelled to submit, and 
turned adrift from the island in two English 
frigates, which chanced to be in the harbour, to 
make the best of their voyage home, and relate 
the history of this extraordinary adventure. 

The Enghsh ministry heard the account with 
indignation ; and the letter from lord Weymouth 
to Mr Harris, the resident minister at the court 
of Madrid, referred to above, was the result. 
The court of Madrid had offered a convention, or 
conditional restoration, and his Lordship's letter 
purports to be a reply to such offer ; it was dated 
17 Oct. 1770, and the following is the most im- 
portant passage contained in it. 

' His Majesty cannot accept, under a con- 
vention, that satisfaction to which he has so just 
a title, without entering into any engagements 
to procure it. The idea of his Majesty's becom- 
ing a contracting party upon this occasion is 



the quarrels of nations bore any resem- 
blance to domestic feuds, or could be con- 
ducted upon the same principles. The 
genius of Queen Elizabeth united the 
nation, collected the strength of the people, 
and carried it forward to resistance and 
victory. When the daemon of discord sits 
at the helm, what have we to expect but 
distraction and civil war at home, disgrace 
and infamy abroad I 

DOMITIAN. 



LETTER LXXXVIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 13 Feb. 1771, 

I READ with astonishment, and no 
small indignation, a letter which is at last 
got into your paper, I mean that from lord 
Weymouth to Mr Harris. 1 The copy 



entirely foreign to the case ; for, having received 
an mjury and demanded the most moderate 
reparation of that injury his honour will permit 
him to accept, that reparation loses its value, 
if it is to be conditional, and to be obtained by 
any stipulation whatsoever on the part of his 
Majesty.' 

Yet in direct violation of this demand of an un- 
conditional restoration and acknowledged so- 
vereignty, the following declaration and accept- 
ance were mutually acceded to at London, Jan. 
22, 1771. 

Translation of the Declaration signed and 
delivered by Prince de Maserano, Am- 
bassador Extraordinary from his Catholic 
Majesty, dated the 22nd day of January, 
1771. 

His Britannic Majesty having complained of 
the violence which was committed on the loth of 
June, 1770, at the island commonly called the 
Great INIalouine, and by the English Falkland's 
Island, in obliging by force the commander and 
subjects of his Britannic Majesty to evacuate the 
port by them called Egmont ; a step offensive to 
the honour of his crown ;— the Prince de Ma- 
serano, ambassador extraordinary of his Catholic 
Majesty, has received orders to declare, and de- 
clares, that his Catholic Majesty, considering the 
desire with which he is animated for peace, and 
for the maintenance of good harmony with his 
Britannic Majesty, and reflecting that this event 
might interrupt it, has seen with displeasure this 
expedition tending to disturb it ; and in the 
persuasion in which he is of the reciprocity of 
sentiments of his Britannic Majesty, and of its 
being far from his intention to authorize any 
30 



466 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



which you have procured I know to be 
authentic, having read it amongst the 

thing that might disturb the good understanding 
between the two courts : his Cathohc Majesty 
does disavow the said violent enterprise ; — and 
in consequence the Prince de Maserano declares, 
that his Catholic Majesty engages to give imme- 
diate orders that things shall be restored in the 
Great Malouine, at the port called Egmont, pre- 
cisely to the state in which they were before the 
loth of June, 1770 ; for which purpose his Ca- 
tholic Majesty will give orders to one of his 
officers to deliver up to the officer authorized by 
his Britannic Majesty, the port and fort called 
Egmont, with all the artillery, stores, and effiscts 
of his Britannic Majesty and his subjects, which 
were at that place the day above-named ; agree- 
able to the inventory which has been made of 
them. 

The Prince de Maserano declares, at the same 
time, in the name of the king his master, that the en- 
gagement of his said Catholic Majesty, to restore 
to his Britannic Majesty the possession of the fort 
and port called Egmont, cannot, nor ought, any 
wise to affect the question of the prior right of 
sovereignty of the Malouine Islands, otherwise 
called Falkland's Islands. In witness whereof, 
I, the underwritten ambassador extraordinary, 
have signed the present declaration with my 
usual signature, and caused it to be sealed v/ith 
our arms. London, the twenty-second day of 
January, one thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-one. 

(L. S.) ;Signed) Le Prince de Maserano. 

Translation of the earl of Rochford's Ac- 
ceptance, dated the 22nd day of January, 
1771, of the Prince de Maserano's Declar- 
ation of the same Date. 
His Catholic Majestj'' having authorized the 
Prince of Maserano, his ambassador extraor- 
dinarj^, to offer in his Majesty's name to the king 
of Great Britain a satisfaction for the injury done 
to his Britannic Majesty by dispossessing him of 
the port and fort of Port Egmont ; and the said 
ambassador having this day signed a declaration, 
which he has just delivered to me, expressing 
therein that his Catholic Majestj', being desirous 
to restore the good harmony and friendship which 
before subsisted between the two crowns, does 
disavow the expedition against Port Egmont, in 
which force has been used against his Britannic 
Majesty's possessions, commander, and subjects ; 
and does also engage that all things shall be im- 
mediately restored to the precise situation in 
which they stood before the loth of June, 1770. 
And that his Catholic Majesty shall give orders 
in consequence to one of his officers to deliver up 
to the officer authorized by his Britannic Ma- 
jesty, the port and fort of Port Egmont, as also 
all his Britannic Majesty's artillery, stores, and 
effects, as well as those of his subjects, according to 
the inventory which has been made of them. — And 
the said ambassador having moreover engaged, 
in his Catholic Majesty's name, that what is con- 
tained in the said declaration shall be carried 



papers laid by administration before both 
Houses. It is the most complete and un- 

into effect by his said Catholic Majesty ; and 
that duplicates of his Catholic Majesty's orders 
to his officers shall be delivered into the hands 
of one of his Britannic Majesty's principal secre- 
taries of state within six weeks ; his said Britannic 
Majesty, in order to show the same friendly dis- 
positions on his part, has authorized me to 
declare, that he will look upon the said declara- 
tion of Prince de Maserano, together with the 
full performance of the said engagement on the 
part of his Catholic Majesty, as a satisfaction for 
the injurj' done to the crown of Great Britain. 
In witness whereof, I, the underwritten, one of 
his Britannic Majesty's principal secretaries of 
state, have signed these presents with my usual 
signature, and caused them to be sealed with our 
arms. London, the 22nd day of January, 1771. 
(L. S.) (Signed) Rochford. 

These papers, together with the above letter 
of lord Weymouth, were laid by lord North 
before the House of Commons, Jan. 25, 1771 ; 
and on Feb. 4, the two following queries were 
moved by lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, 
for the opinion of the judges. 

I. 

Whether, in consideration of law, the imperial 
crown of this realm can hold any territories or 
possessions thereunto belonging, otherwise than 
in sovereignty ? 

2. 

Whether the declaration, or instrument for 
restitution of the port or fort called Egmont, to 
be made by the Catholic king to his Majesty, 
under a reservation of a disputed right of so- 
vereignty expressed in the very declaration or 
htstrianent stipulating sjccJi restitntion, can be 
accepted or carried into execution without dero- 
gating from the maxim of law before referred to, 
tonching the ijiherent and essential dignity of 
the crown of Great Britain ? 

' The above queries were not referred to the 
judges, because lord Mansfield said, that 
the answer to them was self-evident, — that 
they answered themselves ; — by which his 
Lordship was understood to mean that 
both queries clearly answered themselves 
in the negative.'' 

On the 13th of February an address of thanks 
for the communication was voted in both Houses 
of parliament ; that in the Commons, after a very 
long debate, was carried by a considerable ma- 
jorit}', the numbers being for the address 271, 
against 157, who voted for the amendment. 

The address of the Lords was much fuller of 
approbation than that of the Commons, and was, 
notwithstanding, carried through with a much 
greater proportional majority; it was, however, 
productive of the following nervous and argu- 
mentative protest, signed by not less than nine- 
teen peers. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF. JUNIUS. 



467 



answerable condemnation of the infamous 
convention with Spain that the mind of 



DISSENTIENT. 

1. Because it is highly unsuitable to the wis- 
dom and gravity of this House, and to the respect 
which we owe to his JNIajesty and ourselves, to 
carry up to the throne an address approving the 
acceptance of an imperfect instrument, which 
has neither been previously authorized by any 
special full powers produced by the Spanish 
minister, nor been as yet ratified by the king of 
Spain. If the ratification on the part of Spain 
should be refused, the address of this House will 
appear no better than an act of precipitate 
adulation to ministers ; which will justly expose 
the peerage of the kingdom to the indignation of 
their country, and to the derision of all Europe. 

2. Because it is a direct insult on the feelings 
and understanding of the people of Great Britain, 
to approve this declaration and acceptance, as a 
means of securing our own and the general tran- 
quillit}^ whilst the greatest preparations for war 
are making, both by sea and land : and v/hilst 
the practice of pressing is continued, as in times 
of the most urgent necessity, to the extreme in- 
convenience of trade and commerce ; and with 
the greatest hardships to one of the most merit- 
orious and useful orders of his Majesty's sub- 
jects. 

3. Because the refusing to put the questions to 
the judges upon points of law, very essentially 
aftccting this great question, and the refusing to 
address his Majesty to give orders for la3'ing 
before this House the instructions relating to 
Falkland's Islands, given to the commanders of 
his Majesty's ships employed there, is depriving 
us of such lights as seemed highly proper for us 
on this occasion. 

4. Because from the declaration and corre- 
spondence laid before us, we are of opinion that 
the ministers merit the censure of this House, 
rather than any degree of commendation, on ac- 
count of several improper acts, and equally im- 
proper omissions, from the beginning to the close 
of this transaction. For it is asserted by the 
Spanish minister, and stands uncontradicted by 
ours, that several discussions had passed between 
the ministers of the two courts upon the subject 
of Falkland's Islands, which might give the 
British ministers reason to foresee the attack 
upon that settlement that was afterwards made 
by the forces of Spain. Captain Hunt also, 
arriving from thence so early as the third of June 
last, did advertise the ministers of repeated 
warnings and menaces made by Spanish govern- 
ors and commanders of ships of war ; yet so 
obstinately negligent and supine were his Ma- 
jesty's ministers, and so far from the vigilance 
and activity required by the trust and duty of 
their offices, that they did not even so mucli as 
make a single representation to the court of 
Madrid ; which if t<hey had done, the injury itself 
might have been prevented, or at least so 
speedily repaired, as to render unnecessary the 
enormous expenses, to which this nation has 



man can suggest. The whole culprit 
ministr>', together with the king, plead 



been compelled, by waiting until the blow had 
been actually struck, and the news of so signal 
an insult to the crown of Great Britain had 
arrived in Europe. To this wilful, and therefore 
culpable, neglect of representation to the court 
of Spain, was added another neglect, a neglect 
of such timely preparation, for putting this 
nation into such a state of defence, as the men- 
acing appearances on the part of Spain and 
the critical condition of Europe required. These 
preparations, had they been undertaken early, 
would have been executed with more effect, and 
less expense ; would have been far less distress- 
ing to our trade, and to our seamen ; would have 
authorized us in the beginning to have demanded, 
and would in all probability have induced Spain 
to consent to, an immediate, perfect, and equit- 
able settlement of all the points in discussion be- 
tween the two crowns ; but all preparation having 
been neglected, the national safety was left de- 
pending rather upon accidental alterations in the 
internal circumstances of our neighbours, than in 
the proper and natural strength of the kingdom ; 
and this negligence was highly aggravated by 
the refusal of administration to consent to an 
address, proposed by a noble lord in this House 
last session, for a moderate and gradual augment- 
ation of our naval forces. 

5. Because the negotiation, entered Into much 
too late, was, from the commencement, con- 
ducted upon principles as disadvantageous to the 
wisdom of our public councils, as it was finally 
concluded in a manner disgraceful to the honour 
of the crown of Great Britain ; for it appears, 
that the court of Madrid did disavow the act of 
hostility, as proceeding from particular instruc- 
tions, but justified it underhergencral instructions 
to her governors, under the oath by them taken, 
and under the established laws of America. 
This general order was never disavowed nor ex- 
plained ; nor was any disavowal or explanation 
thereof ever demanded by our ministers : and we 
apprehend that this justification of an act of vio- 
lence under general orders, established laws, and 
oaths of office, to be far more dangerous and 
injurious to this kingdom than the particular en- 
terprise which has been disavowed, as it evidently 
supposes, that the governors of the Spanish 
American provinces are not only authorized, but 
required, without any particular instructions, to 
raise great forces by sea and land, and to invade 
his Majesty's possessions in tliat part of the world, 
in the midst of profound peace. 

6. Because this power, so unprecedented and 
alarming, under which the Spanish governor was 
justified by his court, rendered it the duty of our 
ministers to insist upon some censure or punish- 
ment upon that governor, in order to demonstrate 
the sincerity of the court of Madrid, and of her 
desire to preserve peace, by putting at least some 
chec'ic upon those exorbitant powers asserted by 
the court of Spain to be given to her governors. 
But although our ministers were authorized not 
only by the acknowledged principles of the, law 



468 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



guilty by their own unanimous voice. No 
secretary of state ever did or would write a 

of nations, to call for such censure or punish- 
ment, but also by the express provision of the 
seventeenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, yet 
they have thought fit to observe a profound 
silence on this necessary article of public repara- 
tion. If it were thought that any circumstances 
appeared in the particular case of the governor, 
to make an abatement or pardon of the punish- 
ment advisable, that abatement or pardon ought 
to have been the effect of his Majesty's clemency, 
and not an impunity to him, arising from the 
ignorance of our ministers in the first principles 
of public law, or their negligence or pusillanimity 
in asserting them. 

7. Because nothing has been had or demanded 
as a reparation in damage for the enormous ex- 
pense and other inconveniences, arising from the 
confessed and unprovoked violence of the Span- 
ish forces in the enterprise against Falkland's 
Islands, and the long subsequent delay of justice. 
It was not necessarj'- to this demand that it 
should be made in any improper or offensive 
language, but in that style of accommodation 
which has ever been used by able negotiators. 

8. Because an unparalleled and most audacious 
insult has been offered to the honour of the 
British flag, by the detention of a ship of war of 
his Majesty's, for twenty days after the surrender 
of Port Egmont, and by the indignity of forcibly 
taking away her rudder : this act could not be 
supported upon any idea of being necessary to 
the reduction of the fort, nor was any such 
necessity pretended. No reparation in honour 
has been demanded for this wanton insult, by 
which his Majesty's reign is rendered the un- 
happy sera in which the honour of the British 
flag has suffered the first stain with entire im- 
punity. 

9. Because the Spanish declaration, which our 
ministers have advised his Majesty to accept, 
does in general words implj' his Majesty's disa- 
vowal of some acts on his part tending to disturb 
the good correspondence of the two courts, when 
it is notorious, that no act of violence whatsoever 
had beeu committed on the part of Great Britain. 
By this disavowal of some implied aggression in 
the very declaration, pretended to be made for 
reparation of the injured dignity of Great Britain, 
his Majesty is made to admit a supposition con- 
trary to truth, and injurious to the justice and 
honour of his crown. 

10. Because in the said declaration the restitu- 
tion is confined to Port Egmont, when Spain 
herself originally offered to cede Falkland's 
Islands. It is known that she made her forcible 
attack on pretence of title to the whole, and the 
restitution ought, therefore, not to have been 
confined to a part only, nor can any reason be 
assigned why the restitution ought to have been 
made in narrower or more ambiguous words than 
the claims of Spain, on which her act of violence 
was grounded, and her offers of restitution origin- 
ally made. 

11. Because the declaration, by which his Ma- 



letter of this sort upon so delicate a matter* 
without first laying it before his Majesty's 



jesty is to obtain possession of Port Egmont, 
contains a reservation or condition of the question 
of a claim of prior right of sovereignty in the 
Catholic king to the whole of Falkland's Islands, 
being the first time such a claim has ever authen- 
tically appeared in any public instrument jointly 
concluded on by the two courts. No explanation 
of the principles of this claim has been required, 
although there is just reason to believe that these 
principles will equally extend to restrain the 
liberty and confine the extent of British naviga- 
tion. No counter-claim has been made on the 
part of his Majesty, to the right of sovereignty, 
in any part of the said island ceded to him ; any 
assertion whatsoever, of his Majesty's right of so- 
vereignty, has been studiously avoided, from the 
beginning:, to the accomplishment of this unhappy 
transaction ; which, after the expense of millions, 
settles no contest, asserts no right, exacts no 
reparation, affords no security, but stands as a 
monument of reproach to the wisdom of the 
national councils, of dishonour to the essential 
dignity of his Majesty's crown, and of disgrace 
to the hitherto untainted honour of the British 
flag. 

After having given these reasons, founded on 
the facts which appeared from the papers, we 
think it necessary here to disclaim an invidious 
and injurious imputation, substituted in the 
place of fair argument, that they who will not 
approve of this convention, are for precipitating 
theircountry into the calamities of war. We are 
as far from the design, and we trust much further 
from the act, of kindling the flame of war, than 
those who have advised his Majesty to accept of 
the declaration of the Spanish ambassador. We 
have never entertained the least thought of in- 
validating this public act ; but if ministers may 
not be censured, or even punished, for treaties 
which, though valid, are injurious to the national 
interest and honour, without a supposition of the 
breach of public faith in this House, that should 
censure or punish, or of a breach of the laws of 
humanity in those who propose such censure or 
punishment, the use of the peers, as a controul 
on ministers, and as the best as well as highest 
council of the crown, will be rendered of no 
avail. We have no doubt but a declaration 
more adequate to our just pretensions, and to the 
dignity of the crown, might have been obtained 
without the effusion of blood ; not onlj'from the 
favourable circumstances of the conjuncture, but 
because our just demands were no more than 
any sovereign power, who had injured another 
through inadvertence or mistake, ought, even 
from regard to its own honour, to have granted : 
and we are satisfied that the obtaining such 
terms would have been the only secure means of 
establishing a lasting and honourable peace. 
Richmond, Audley, 

Bolton, King, 

Manchester, Torrington, 
Tankerville, Milton, 
Chatham, Abergavenny, 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



469 



most confidential servants, and taking the 
king's express orders upon it. It speaks 
then the unanimous sentiments of them all. 
His Majesty pronounces in common with 
the rest his own condemnation in that of 
this unworthy transaction. The moderate 
reparation to his Majesty's honour for the 
injury is not obtained unconditionally ; 
that is, in the only way which he himself 
and his servants thought indispensable. 
An humiliating stipulation for referring the 
discussion of the prior right is a defeasance 
of the reparation. It wounds irreparably 
the honour of the king as a private man, 
and the glory of the kingdom ; but when 
that stipulation carries along with it also a 
private insinuation or encouragement to the 
Catholic King to hope, and most probably, 
not to say certainly, an express assurance, 
tliat not only Port Egmont, now restored 
to us, but the whole island, shall in due 
time, as soon as they dare, be surrendered 
to the crown of Spain. No words can ex- 
press the meanness or folly of such a pro- 
ceeding. Our tame submission to France 
in the Ccrsican business has drawn this 
atrocious insult upon us. This insult, ac- 
companied with the indignities contained, 
by the minister's own confession, in the 
convention, will renew to us, in the mouths 
of the proud and triumphant Spaniards, 
the ignominious title of Gallinas del mar, 
and we shall deservedly become a bye-word 
of contempt amongst the nations. The 
only reparation which it can be pretended 
that Spain makes, is the temporary restitu- 
tion of Port Egmont. Restoring to me 
my possessions violently seized is an act of 
justice, not of reparation : but with what in- 
delible shame shall we be covered, when it is 
seen that we pitifully traffic away what was 
insultingly wrested from us, and yield the 



whole to the aggressor under any pretence 
! or colour whatever ? The insult was com- 
j mitted after repeated notices of our right, 
in full peace : it was an insult not only to 
the flag of England hitherto spotless, but 
to the whole majesty of the kingdom, by 
direct hostihties committed as in time of 
actual war, so as to inforce a formal capitu- 
lation : a proceeding till now unheard of, 
submitted to with a meanness and treachery 
on the part of our rulers, which nothing 
can now palliate. We deceive ourselves if 
we think the peace can be maintained by 
pusillanimity and baseness. Remember 
' his Majesty cannot accept under a con- 
vention that satisfaction to which he has so 
just a title, w'ithout entering into any en- 
gagements to procure it.' ^ 

A Member of one House 0/ Par- 
liament in mojtrniiig for the 
hono2irofhis kifig and country . 



Wycombe, 
Craven, 
Boyle, 
Devonshire, 



FiTZWILLIAIM, 

ponsonby, 

Scarborough^ 

Archer. 



DISSENTIENT. 
Because, though the disavowal may be con- 
sidered as humiliating to the court of Spain, the 
declaration and acceptance, under the reserva- 
tion of the question of prior right, do not, in my 



LETTER LXXXIX. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 16 February, 1771. 

It is proper the pubhc should be 
informed that, upon lord Gower's election 
to be a knight of the .garter, there were but 
four knights present, besides ths sovereign, 
and the duke of Gloucester was lugged in 
to be one of them. He intreated, he 
begged, he implored,— but all to no pur- 
pose. Poor Peg Trentham was forced to 
submit to an election, which, by the statutes 
of the order, is void.— Ashmole informs us, 
that ' to make up a complete chapter of 
election, there should be assembled six 
knights companions at the least, besides 
the sovereign ; the due observance of 
which hath been so strict formerly, that 



opinion, after the heavy expences incurred, either 
convey a satisfaction adequate ta the insult on 
the honour of Great Britain, or afford any rea- 
sonable grounds to believe that peace, on the 
terms of honour, can be lasting. Radnor. — 
Edit. 

^ See this subject further discussed in Letter 
XLII., and notes appended to it.— Edit. 



470 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 


elections have been deferred, where chap- 
ters have been deficient in that number,' i 

The present way of electing Peg Trent- 
ham, is, for two reasons, remarkable. It 
shows first, in what profound contempt 
poor Peggy is universally held. And 
secondly, the pious resolution of our 
gracious sovereign to introduce a new 
system of arithmetic. In the decision of 
the Middlesex election it was resolved that 
296 were more than 1143, and now we are 
told that four are equal to six.— This puts 
me in mind of lord Marsh's election to the 
coterie.— All the balls were black ;— but the 
returning officer, George Selwyn, thought 
proper to swear he was duly elected, and he 
took his seat accordingly. 

A. B. 


in point of ignorance, upon a level with the 
people whose conduct they defend.2 The 
questions they ask are suicide to their own 
cause. Gibraltar and Minorca were yielded 
to England by the treaty of Utrecht, to 
which treaty Spain acceded ; and, admit- 
ting that they have never given up in form 
their claim to Jamaica, it is also true that, 
since the treaty of Utrecht, they have never 
asserted such a claim, much less have we 
allowed it to be inserted in any treaty 
between the two crowns. But, Sir, the real 
question is, not what declaradons or pre- 
tensions Spain may have thought proper to 
advance, but, what declarations or preten- 
sions on their part have we admitted and 
accepted? To support a fair comparison 
between the terms on which we hold the 
above places, and those on which Port 
Egmont is restored, it should be proved 
that Spain, in some treaty between us and 
it, has asserted its claim of prior right to 
Jamaica, Gibraltar, and Minorca, and that 
we have, with equal formality, accepted a 
treaty containing such an express reserva- 

to the illegally smuggling in a knight upon that 
most noble order, in the same manner as a knight 
for the county of Middlesex has been smuggled 
into the House of Commons. If this article of 
news could be true, would not the kingdom have 
reason to lament that all order, decency, and 
respect foV ancient rules and eFtablishment, is 
now broken through by the person whose peculiar 
duty and interest it is to preserve them ? Is the 
court itself so unpopular, or is the subject of his 
Majesty's favour so unworthy, that it was, after 
ten days waiting, impossible to procure the 
attendance of more than the king's own brother, 
the lord chamberlain, the auditor of the Ex- 
chequer, and the duke of Northumberland in flan- 
nels ? 

Risuvt teneatis amici! 

^ The following is a copy of the paragraph 
which occasioned the foregoing essay : 

' People who would cavil, and are clamorous 
about that part of the Spanish declaration, where 
the king of Spain makes a reservation of a prior 
claim of right to Falkland Island, would do well 
to consider, that such reservation is only mere 
matter of form, and is never likely to produce 
the smallest misunderstanding between the two 
crowns, especially when they recollect, or may 
inform themselves, that Spain never, to this 
hour, has renounced her formal claim of right, 
either to Minorca or Gibraltar, in the treaties 
.subsequent to our possession of those places.'— 
Edit. 


LETTER XC. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 
Sir, 22 February, 1771. 
The advocates of the ministry are. 


^ The .same fact is related, and probably by 
the same correspondent, in the following article 
of the Public Advertiser, February 15, 1771. 

A correspondent has sent us the following 
remarks on the London Gazette, published by 
authority. 

This lying paper contains the following unpre- 
cedented article: 'St James's, Feb. 11. This 
day a chapter of the most noble order of the 
garter was held in the great council chamber, 
when Granville Levison Gower, earl Gower, 
being first knighted, was afterwards elected and 
invested with the garter, ribbon, and George, 
-with the usual solemnity.' It is most notorious 
to a great concourse of nobility and gentry then 
present, that there were only assisting the best 
of kings, the dukes of Gloucester, Newcasde, 
and Northumberland ; consequendy it is impos- 
sible that anj' election can have been made, the 
statutes of the order requiring the presence of 
the sovereign with six knights. The best of 
kings, whose duty it is to preserve the laws in- 
violable, could, to be sure, on no consideration, 
not even the election of that most worthy peer 
the earl Gower into this noble order, be prevailed 
upon, in the face of all England, to set the 
example of openly violating the statutes which 
have hitherto been so religiously respected and 
observed through so many ages. Had there 
been an election, the Gazette would have pro- 
claimed it in the usual form, the knights preserit 
would have been enumerated and named. It is 
impossible that the best of kings can be a party 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



47^ 



tion, and declared ourselves satisfied -with 
it. The ministry would theii have an 
example in point.^ 

YIXDEX. 



LETTER XCI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 March, 1771. 

Pray tell that ingenious gentle- 
man Mr Laughlin ]Macleane,2 that when 
the king of Spain writes to the king of 
Great Britain, he omits four-fifths of his 
titles, and when our king writes to him, 
his address is always Carolo^ Dei gratia, 
Hispaniarumt titriusque Sicilice, et Indi- 
arnm Regi Catholico. It was reserved for 
his present Majesty to say, in a public 
instrument, ' Falkland Island is one of my 
possessions, and yet I allow the king of 
Spain to reserve a claim of prior right, and 
I declare myself satisfied with that reserva- 
tion." In spite of Mr Laughlin's disinter- 
ested, unbroken, melodious eloquence, it is 
a melancholy truth that the crown of 
England was never so insulted, never so 
shamefully degraded, as by this declaration, 
with which the best of sovereigns assures 
his people he is perfectly, entirely, com- 
pletely satisfied. 

VINDEX. 



^ The printer thought proper at the time, with 
the consent of the author, see Private Letter, No. 
33, to break off at this point, and to suppress the 
remainder of the essay. The autograph of the 
entire letter is still in the hands of the proprietor 
of this edition : but it would be a breach of con- 
fidence to continue it further. Independently of 
which, he altogether approves of the suppression. 
— Edit. 

^ Laughlin Macleane had been under secre- 
tary of state during lord Shelburne's possession 
of the office for the southern department. In his 
defence of the ministry here referred to, he still 
discovers a hankering after office, and at least a 
disposition to forgive them for his dismission. 
Mr Campbell, however, in his Life of Hugh Boyd, 
p. 125, tells us that at this very period he pos- 
sessed ' a mortal hatred for his Grace of Grafton;, 
and indulged his resentment by painting him in 
the blackest colours ! ! ! ' See observations on 
this subject in the Preliminary Essay, p. 51. In 



LETTER XCII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 25 March^ lyyi- 

However the court might have 
concealed its designs ; however it might 
have deluded those who were disposed to 
be deceived, the imposition can e.xist no 
longer. The triplet union of Crown, Lords, 
and Commons against England displays 
itself with a violence and a candour, which 
statesmen in other conspiracies seldom 
have adopted. It is no more a question of 
royal antipathy or feminine unrelenting re- 
sentment ; it is not a single inconsequent 
act of arbitrary power ; it is not tlie offen- 
sive individual, but the free constitution of 
this country, whose destruction engages the 
influence of the crown and the authority of 
parliament. 

The House of Commons assume a power 
of imprisonment during pleasure for actions 
which the laws have not made criminal. 
They create a crime as well as a punishment. 
They call upon the king to support their 
illegality by a proclamation still more 
illegal ; and the liberty of the press is the 
object of this criminal alliance. They 
expunge a recognizance ; they stagnate the 
cause of justice, and thereby assume an 
absolute power over the law and property 
of Great Britain. ^ 



January, in the following year, he received from 
lord North the collectorship of Philadelphia, and 
subsequently an appointment to India, in his 
voyage to which he was lost. — Edit. 

3 The whole of this requires explanation. The 
printers of newspapers having long intended it, 
now resolutely determined to report the debates 
of both Houses. Col. Onslow made a motion 
against them as guilty of a violation of the pri- 
vileges of parliament ; and the printers were 
summoned to attend : Wheble and INIiller how- 
ever refused to obe^'the order ; and the minister 
thought proper to issue a proclamation in his 
Majesty's name, and insert it in the Gazette, 
offering a reward of fiftj' pounds for apprehend- 
ing John Wheble, printer of the Middlesex 
Journal, and John ISIiller, printer of the London 
Evening Post, for daring to publish certain 
speeches delivered in parliament. In conse- 
quence of this proclamation they -^vere both ap- 
prehended ; Wheble by a brother printer of the 



472 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



The House of Lords have not been back- 
ward in their contribution to the scheme of 



name of Carpenter, who owed him a grudge, 
and Miller by William Whittam, a messenger of 
the House of Commons. The former was carried 
before Mr Wilkes, at that time just liberated 
from the- King's Bench, and, as alderman for 
Farringdon Without, sitting magistrate at Guild- 
hall ; who denying the legal authority of a mere 
proclamation, discharged Wheble, and took a 
recognizance of him to prosecute Carpenter for 
an assault and unlawful imprisonment. Miller 
upon his arrest sent for a constable, to whom he 
gave charge of the messenger who arrested him, 
and immediately carried him to the Mansion- 
house, where the lord mayor, Mr Alderman 
Wilkes, and Mr Alderman Oliver jointly heard 
the cause, discharged Miller, and signed a war- 
rant of commitment of the messenger to the 
Compter for the assault and false imprisonment ; 
from which, however, he was released upon 
finding bail. Wilkes at the same time that these 
transactions were officially entered by the lord 
mayor's clerk into the Mansion-house rota book, 
addressed a letter to lord Halifax, one of the 
secretaries of state, informing him of the steps he 
had taken. 

All was confusion and uproar. The House of 
Commons supported the legality of the procla- 
mation: issued an order to prohibit every kind 
of prosecution or suit from being commenced or 
carried on for or on account of the assault and 
imprisonment of the printers ; ordered the clerk 
to attend who had entered the proceedings in 
the Mansion-house minute book ; erased the 
entire record ; and summoned the different alder- 
men who had officiated to appear at the bar of 
the House to answer for their conduct. 

The city first of all, and afterwards the nation 
at large, was extremely indignant at such illegal 
violence. The lord mayor's clerk was severely 
reprimanded at a general court of aldermen for 
suffering the city minute book to be mutilated ; 
the Bill of Rights Society complained vehemently 
against the outrages committed ; — Wilkes refused 
to obey the summons for his attendance, and the 
lord mayor and his other colleagues, upon attend- 
ing and justifying their conduct, were committed 
to the Tower, for pretended contumacy. It was 
on this occasion that the lord mayor (Crosby) 
made the following spirited reply : — 

' Mr Speaker, — an honourable gentleman has 
talked of the lenity to be shown me on account 
of my health, and my being only committed to 
the custody of the serjeant at arms. I thank 
God that my health is better than it has been 
for some time past. I know that I was pre- 
judged on Monday, and that the string of reso- 
lutions and warrants is now in the gentleman's 
pocket. I ask no favour of this House. I crave 
no mercy from the Treasury-bench. I am ready 
to go to my noble friend at the Tower, if the 
House shall order me. My conscience is clear, 
and tells me that I have kept my oath, and done 
my duty to the city, of which I have the honour 
to be chief magistrate, and to my country. I 



slavery; for they have imprisoned, and they 
have fined. The crime, like the punishment, 

will never betray the privileges of the citizens, 
nor the rights of the people. I have no apology 
to make for having acted uprightly, and I fear 
not any resentment in consequence of such con- 
duct. I will through life continue to obey the 
dictates of honour and conscience, to give my 
utmost support to every part of the constitution 
of this kingdom, and the event I shall always leave 
to Heaven, at all times ready to meet my fate.' 

The lord mayor was accompanied to the Tower 
by an immense concourse of the livery, as well 
as of persons not connected with the police of the 
city, many of them of the utmost respectability ; 
he was visited by the dukes of Manchester and 
Portland, earls Fitzwilliam and Tankerville, lord 
King, admiral Keppel, sir Charles Saunders, 
Mr Dowdeswell, Mr Burke, and many other 
commoners ; as also by the two sheriffs, in order 
to express their entire disapprobation of the pro- 
ceedings that had taken place against them ; and 
the thanks of the city were voted unanimously, 
at a meeting of common council holden March 
28, to such members of the House of Commons 
as had supported the conduct of the lord mayor 
and his colleagues, and maintained the rights 
and privileges of the city. The common council 
voted that all the expenses of the lord mayor's 
and Mr Oliver's table, &c. &c., should be de- 
frayed by the city. 

The magistrates, in order to obtain their dis- 
charge, were carried by habeas corpus, first 
before lord chief justice De Grey, and afterwards 
before lord Mansfield ; but both judges refusing 
to discharge them, they were remanded to the 
Tower. In the mean time, in direct opposition 
to the order of the House of Commons, the 
grand jury, at the ensuing quarter-sessions at 
Guildhall, found bills of indictment against Car- 
penter and Whittam, the messenger of the House, 
for the assault and imprisonment of Miller and 
Wheble. The lord mayor and his colleagues 
remained in the Tower till the 8th of May, on 
which day his Majesty, by proroguing th»parlia- 
ment, terminated its power of confining them 
any longer. 

It is not necessary at this time to enter into 
the question of the legality or illegality of the 
power claimed in this instance by the House of 
Commons, under the specious name of parlia- 
mentary privilege. They virtually admitted 
themselves to have erred, by their subsequent 
conduct towards Mr Wilkes ; who, though by far 
the most culpable of the whole (admitting cul- 
pability of any kind), was suffered to remain un- 
molested, except by serving him with three suc- 
cessive summonses to appear at the bar of the 
House, every one of which he contemptuously 
refused to obey, unless the House would suffer 
him to take his place as member for Middlesex. 
The result of the contest has terminated favour- 
ably for the public, who have ever since been 
put into possession of the debates of both Houses, 
through the medium of newspaper reporters. — 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



473 



was in their own bosom. They were ex 
post facto legislators. They were parties ; 
they were judges ; and, instead of a court 
of final judicature, acted as a court of 
eriminal jurisdiction in the first instance. 
The three estates, instead of being a con- 
troul upon each other, are let loose upon 
the constitution. The absolute power of 
the crown, by the assistance of the hand- 
maid corruption, puts on the disguise of 
privilege. In the arrangement of hostility, 
the associated senate takes the lead, and 
illegal proclamation brings up the rear of 
oppression. The cabal advances upon us 
as an army once did upon a town — it dis- 
played before it a multitude of nuns, and 
overawed the resistance of the besieged by 
the venerable appearance. So the cabinet 
puts forth the countenance of parliament, 
and marches against the constitution under 
the shelter of the hallowed frailty. 

What has an Englishman now to hope 
for ? He inust turn from king, lords, and 
commons, and look up to God and himself 
if he means to be free. He sees the repre- 
sentation of the kingdom taken from the 
people — the law dispensed with — the obli- 
gation of a contract erased — the liberty of 
the subject invaded — the freedom of the 
press violated— by the House of Commons. 
By the House of Lords he sees liberty, 
property, and the freedom of the press 
assaulted likewise, and the decision ^ of 
justice in its last resort a question of influ- 
ence, not of law. He beholds three supreme 
powers instead of one, and the constitution 
a separate plunder to each : or rather he 
beholds one estate possessed of the power 
by the profligacy of the rest.— If the cabinet 
should prevail, we shall not only be en- 
slaved, but disgraced. The man and means 
that enslave us would be an additional dis- 
honour. 

An Englishman, and Efte?72y 
to the Cahmet therefore. 



^ In the case of lord Pomfret and Smith. 

^ There is some doubt as to the genuineness 
of this as well as of the ensunig letter; but as 
they are illustrative of one of JuNius's most im- 
portant letters, No. XLIV. ; as they are excel- 
lently composed, and the subject has been in 



LETTER XCIII.2 

For the Public Advertiser. 

29 March, 1771. 

to the right honourable the lord 
mayor, mr alderman oliver, and 
mr alderman wilkes. 

My Lord and Gentlemen, 

As your conduct in regard to the 
business of the printers is become the uni- 
versal subject of conversation, I will take 
the liberty of communicating my sentiments 
to you in this public manner. The busi- 
ness first opened with a printer's being 
taken up by virtue of the king's proclama- 
tion, and carried before Mr Alderman 
Wilkes (who was sitting as a justice of the 
peace for the city of London) in order to 
his being committed by virtue of that pro- 
clamation only. Mr Wilkes discharged 
the printer, and upon his complaint, veri- 
fied upon oath, bound over the apprehender 
to appear at the quarter-sessions, and the 
printer to prosecute for an assault. In 
considering the legality of this proceeding 
I will totally lay out of the question the 
privileges and franchises of the city of 
London, as I think this part of the case 
does not require any assistance from them, 
though they may be very material in the 
subsequent proceedings as to the messenger 
of the House of Commons. The first con- 
sideration then will be, what was the force 
and effect of the proclamation ? In Judge 
Dalison's Reports, which is a book of au- 
thority, p. 20, 2 and 3 Phil, and Mary, it 
is said, ' Note, It was agreed for law, that 
the king may make a proclamation to his 
subjects quo ad terroretn populi, to put 
them in fear of his displeasure, but not 
upon other pain certain, as to forfeit their 
lands or goods, or to make fine, or to suffer 

some measure recently agitated, the editor could 
not consent to suppress them. l"he quotation 
from Hawkins, inserted in the second letter, will 
be found adopted by Junius as one of his notes 
to the letter just referred to.— Edit. 



474 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



imprisonment or other pain : for no pro- 
clamation shall make a law which was not 
before, but may confirm and ratify an 
ancient law, but not change it, or make 
a new one ; yet diverse precedents were 
shown out of the Exchequer to the contrary, 
but the justices would not have any regard 
to them, quod nota.' And in the 12th Part 
of sir Edward Coke's Reports, which is a 
book of the highest authority, p. 74, in the 
8 Ja. ist (when prerogative ran high,) you 
will find a case called the case of pro- 
clamations, which, amongst other things, 
contains these resolutions : ' That the king 
by his proclamation or otherways cannot 
change any part of the common law, or 
statute law, or the customs of the realm.' 
'That the king cannot create any offence 
by his prohibition or proclamation, which 
was not an offence before ; ' and that ' that 
which cannot be punished without proclam- 
ation cannot be punished with it.' That 
the king may by his proclamation admonish 
his subjects to keep the laws, but cannot 
make a thing unlawful which the law per- 
mits. And this, as the learned reporter 
observes, was well proved by the ancient 
and continual forms of indictments, for all 
indictments conclude, contra legem et con- 
stieiudinem Anglice, or contra leges et 
statuta, b=c. ' But never was seen an in- 
dictment to conclude contra regiam procla- 
mationem.' 

The learned reporter puts several instances 
of illegal proclamations, and amongst the 
rest this : An act was made by which fo- 
reigners were hcensed to merchandise within 
London. H. 4. by proclamation prohibit- 
ed the execution of it, and that it should 
be in suspense usatie ad proximiim parlia- 
me7ituvi, which, says the learned reporter, 
was against law. Vide Dors. Claus. 8 
Hen. 4. Proclamation in London, Here 
give me leave to make one observation, that 
any proclamation which infringes the an- 
cient customs, privileges, and franchises of 
the city of London, infringes the statute 
laws of this land ; for the customs, pri- 
vileges, and franchises of the city of London 
are confirmed and established by various 



acts of parliament. The case still goes on, 
and says, that the law of England is divided 
into three parts, common law, statute law, 
and custom ; ' but the king's proclamation 
is none of them.' And the learned reporter 
concludes in saying : ' after this resolution, 
no proclamation imposing fine and im- 
prisonment was afterwards made ; ' and I 
I have no doubt but the learned reporter 
! thought that after this solemn decision no 
I such proclamations would ever be issued in 
I any future times : but, alas ! he did not 
see the jurisprudence of the reign of George 
the Third. 

I think I may call this case a solemn de- 
termination, because it was settled upon 
great deliberation by the two chief justices, 
the chief baron and baron Altham, upon 
conference betwixt the lords of the privy 
council and them. When the printer was 
brought before Mr Wilkes, Mr Wilkes act- 
ed as a magistrate, and in a judicial ca- 
pacity ; and had he imprisoned the printer, 
or any other subject of this kingdom, upon 
less evidence than the law required, he 
would have been highly criminal. And in 
a case where the liberty of the subject was 
concerned, it required the best and the 
highest evidence to justify the deprivation 
of that liberty. The law and rules of evi- 
dence ' are part of the common law of the 
land,' and the king cannot ' by his pro- 
clamation alter or suspend any of those 
laws or rules ; ' for that would be to alter 
the law of the land, and be in direct oppo- 
sition to those respectable authorities I 
have cited. It is a law and a rule of evi- 
dence that no judge or justice can judicially' 
take notice of a private act of parliament, 
much less can they judicially take notice of 
a private order of the House of Commons 
relative to two individuals only. Nay, if 
you add to it the sanction of the royal pro- 
clamation, and consider it as the act of the 
king and Commons, does it mend the 
matter ? Does it give it greater authority 
in point of legal evidence than an act of 
parharoent? I should be glad to be in- 
formed if the constitution has given such 
an arbitrary power of imprisonment to the 



J 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



475 



House of Commons as they claim, why it 
has not given them proper ofificers to en- 
force it without resorting to the king? 
Why has not the serjeant at arms a power 
to raise the posse comitatus? Why are not 
people punishable for not giving him assist- 
ance ? And yet I dare say there is not a 
law-book that has attributed this power to 
him, nor did we ever hear of a person pun- 
ished for refusing him assistance, which in 
my apprehension is a strong argument 
against the power claimed by the House of 
Commons against the printers. I should 
be glad, too, to be informed, what law, 
usage, or custom, has made the king the 
minister to authenticate tlie orders of the 
House of Commons, when it first began, 
and where it is to be found. By what writ 
or authority does the order come before the 
king to be authenticated, and where is it to 
be found ? I never yet saw any statute, 
case, or even dictum to authorize this. 
And if the law has not intrusted the king 
with the power of authenticating the orders 
of the House of Commons by his royal pro- 
clamation, every judge and justice in this 
kingdom v;ill do right in paying no regard 
to them under such a sancdon. I have 
known trials where it has been necessary to 
give in evidence the proceedings and de- 
terminations of the House of Commons, 
which have always been done by proving 
them upon oath to be true copies of the 
journals by the witness who examined them. 
And though Mr Wilkes might be convinced 
in his mind that there was such an order as 
stated in the proclamation, he could not in 
his judicial capacity take notice of it, as it 
was not authenticated according to law. 
This doctrine has been illustrated in a mo- 
dern instance. Did not the present chief 
justice of the King's Bench and his brethren 
refuse to take judicial notice of Mr Wilkes 
when he surrendered himself in order to 
the reversal of his outlawry, because he did 
not come properly authenticated before 
them, although I fancy they had very little 

^ Robert Morris, Esq. was a member of, and 
secretary to, the Bill of Rights Society. At their 
meeting in order to discuss the question of the 



doubt in their minds as to the identity of 
his person? So upon the same principles 
Mr Wilkes was well warranted in rejecting 
the proclamation ; and that being out of 
the way, I think it will then be so clear, 
that Mr Wilkes would have done right in 
committing the assailant upon the printer, 
if he had not given bail, as not to admit of 
an argument. 

I have two observations to make upon 
the late attempt of enforcing the order of 
the House of Commons by the royal pro- 
clamation. First, that the calling in the 
aid of the king upon that occasion was 
weakening the authority and dignity of the 
House, and tends to make the execution of 
the orders of that House dependent upon 
the pleasure of the king ; and in the next 
place, such an interposition on the part of 
the king carries this appearance with it to 
the public, that it is not the independence, 
or the just liberties and privileges, of the 
commons of England that are thus anxious- 
ly sought to be preserved, but the gratifica- 
tion of the spleen and resentment (to say 
no worse of it) of the administration. I 
shall conclude this letter by saying, and 
thinking till I am better informed, that the 
late proclamation was an unwarrantable 
exertion of power, tending to mislead all 
judges and justices throughout England, 
and to put them upon imprisoning an Eng- 
lish subject contrary to law, and the rules 
of evidence, which make part of the law of 
this kingdom ; and therefore I for one ap- 
plaud the conduct of Mr Wilkes in this 
mstance. In another letter I shall deliver 
my sentiments as to the proceedings of your 
Lordship, Mr Alderman Oliver, and Mr 
Alderman Wilkes, when the messenger of 
the House of Commons was brought before 
you. I have forborne to take this business 
up on the same grounds that Mr Morris 
has done, as it would only be a repetition 
of what he has very judiciously before 
transmitted to the public.^ It is sufficient 



arrest of the printers, he thus addressed the 
chairman ; and it is to this speech the writer of 
the above letter refers. 
' Mr Chairman, 
' The proclamation issued for apprehending the 



476 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



for me to say that I think he has sufficiently 
demonstrated the illegality of the order of 
the House of Commons ; I only meant to 
give additional strength to his observations ; 
and if any man will coolly consider the 
whole case, argument will continually crowd 
upon his mind to evince the illegality and 
injustice of the order and royal proclama- 
tion. 

I am, 
My Lord and Gentlemen, 

Your most humble servant, 
G. W. 



LETTER XCIV. 



For the Public Advertiser. 

8 April, 1771. 
to the right hon. the lord mayor 
of london, mr alderman oliver, 
and mr alderman wilkes. 
My Lord and Gentlemen, 

In my first letter I submitted my 
reasons why Mr Wilkes could not in his 
judicial capacity take notice of the order of 
the House of Commons, merely under the 
sanction of the royal proclam.ation. If I 
was right in that, it was totally immaterial 
whether the order of the House of Com- 
mons as to the printers was legal or illegal ; 
for in either case Mr Wilkes's conduct was 
agreeable to law. And in either case, the 
expunging of the proceedings taken before 
him, be it by what order it may, was a fla- 
grant violation of the law, and a very dan- 
gerous obstruction to the execution of 

printers is, on all hands, I think, allowed to be 
illegal. I do not believe that there is in the 
whole kingdom a lawyer's clerk, who does not 
know it to be equally repugnant to the spirit and 
letter of the law and the constitution. The law, 
though not so well known, is as clear against 
commitments by the House of Commons. They 
have nothing to support their pretensions but 
their own vote, which certainly is not binding on 
any but themselves ; an act of the three branches 
of the legislature being the only authority that 
is, besides the common law, acknowledged by 
England as valid. Matters being thus circum- 
stanced, I am sorry to find that such magistrates 
of London, as belong to this Society, do not 
afford protection to the printers, and rescue them 



criminal justice. I will next consider the 
subsequent proceedings as to the messen- 
ger of the House of Commons, who was 
brought before you, as magistrates of the 
city of London, and charged upon oath 
with having committed a breach of the 
peace, in assaulting and imprisoning one of 
your citizens. The messenger justified the 
fact under a warrant signed by the speaker 
of the House of Commons, which I shall 
state more particularly hereafter, but at 
present it is not necessary. 

This justification necessarily brought the 
validity of the speaker's warrant collater- 
ally in question before you. Some people, 
who have in general applauded your con- 
duct in this business, have said that you 
went too far in signing a warrant of com- 
mitment of the messenger, and in obliging 
him to give bail. As you deemed the 
speaker's warrant illegal, you could not do 
otherwise ; it was the necessary conse- 
quence and judgment upon the complaint 
before you. You would have been guilty of 
a breach of duty, as magistrates, if you had 
adjudged the messenger guilty of a breach 
of peace, and not have committed him, or 
bound him over to answer the offence in a 
due course of law. One of the greatest 
privileges assumed by either House of par- 
liament, is that of having their privileges 
(as they call them) examined and inquired 
into in their own Houses only. And if this 
can be established as the law of England, 
any subject may be deprived of his life, 
liberty, and property, by an arbitrary vote 
of eithei House, under the name of privi- 



from lawless violence. My concern for this 
neglect, this fear, or this tergiversation, is the 
greater, that, if the officers of the House of 
Commons, or any other person but a minister of 
this city properly authorized, takes these ob- 
noxious men into custody, the rights of the city 
are violated ; it being legally impossible for king, 
lords, and commons, to seize any citizen of Lon- 
don without the consent of its own magistrates. 
Were they even to make an act for that purpose, 
it could not have any force ; because the act 
made in favour of the city, in the reign of Wil- 
liam and Mary, ought to be considered as a 
constitution, and as irreversible as Magna Charta; 
for indeed it is the Magna Charta of the city.' — 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



477 



lege of parliament. It will be said that this 
is a foreign presumption, and that we can- 
not suppose that those respectable charac- 
ters in the Houses of parliament would 
invade the liberties of the people. I must 
own I think from some late exertions, there 
is no room left for presumptions ; but be 
that as it may, I think the liberties of 
England ought to stand upon a more solid 
basis than presumptions, or the arbitrary- 
voice of one branch of the legislature only. 
The cases to prove that the assumed 
privileges of either House of parliament are 
not examinable elsewhere than in their own 
Houses, are lord Shaftsbury's case, 29 Car. 
II. in B. R. The Queen v. Paty & ahas, 3 
Ann. in B. R., and the Hon. Alexander Mur- 
ray's case, 24 Geo. II. in B. R. In all cases 
adjudged upon constitutional points, regard 
should be had to the temper of the times 
when they happened, and the characters, 
connexions, and dependencies of the judges. 
If these circumstances be attended to in 
lord Shaftsbury's case, I am very sure it 
will be found to be a precedent of no 
weight or authority. Lord Shaftsbury was 
a man exceedingly obnoxious to king 
Charles the Second, having in the House 
of Lords violently opposed that arbitrary 
prince, and his attempts to introduce 
Popery into this kingdom. The king's de- 
signs were no secret ; and the independent 
members in the House of Commons had 
meditated means to prevent the execution 
of them. Tlie king, to frustrate this, pro- 
rogued the parliament for fifteen months 
within a few days, being the longest proro- 
gation which had been then known. The 
king had also found means, by pensioning 
many of the members of the Lower House, 
to gain a considerable influence in it ; and 
the dissolution of parliament was then (as it 
is now) a thing earnestly to be sought for. 
Upon the meeting of the parliament, after 
this long prorogation, a question was pro- 
pounded in the House of Lords by the 
country party, whether it was not actually 
dissolved. Lord Shaftsbury, and others of 
that party, argued and maintained upon 
an old statute of king Edward the Third, 



then in force, which directed that the king 
should call a parliament once a year, or 
oftener if need should be, that the par- 
liament was actually dissolved ; but the 
court party strenuously opposed this, 
knowing that the eyes of the people were 
opened, and that a new parliament would 
not be favourable to the king's designs. 

This question had made a great noise in 
the kingdom, and by way of silencing the 
people, the king's party in the House of 
Lords voted lord Shaftsbury, lord Sahs- 
bury, and lord Wharton, who had main- 
tained that the parliament was dissolved, 
guilty of a contempt of that House, and sent 
them to the Tower : that they were sent to 
the Tower to gratify the king's vengeance is 
apparent from the words of the warrant of 
commitment, for it directs them to be kept 
j in safe custody duriitg his Majesty's plea- 
sure, and the pleasure of the House, for 
their high ■ contempt committed against 
that House. Lord Salisbury and lord 
Wharton submitted to the House, and 
were discharged ; lord Shaftsbury at first 
refused it, and sued out his Habeas Corpus, 
and was brought before the King's Bench 
with the warrant' of his commitment. 

The warrant was glaringly illegal and 
unconstitutional, and seems to be admitted 
by all the judges in that case to be so, par- 
ticularly, Wylde, justice, said, the return 
no doubt was illegal. This was a critical 
case : in fact, it was the king's cause, and 
the judges to determine it at that time held 
their offices during the pleasure of the 
crown, so that they were reduced to an 
awkward dilemma ; however, they found 
means to extricate themselves from it by 
determining, that though the commitment 
was illegal, they could not examine into it, 
and so lord Shaftsbury w-as remanded ; 
and the three puisne judges on the case of 
the Queen v. Paty & ahas, as also the 
judges in Mr Murray's case, seem implicitly 
to have followed the determination in lord 
Shaftsbury's case, and therefore if that 
determination be overthrown, the other 
two must sink of course. In the case of the 
Queen v. Paty & ahas, 3 Ann., the defend- 



478 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ants having been committed to Newgate 
by a warrant of the speaker of the House 
of Commons, signed Robert Harley, 
speaker (a fatal name to liberty), were 
brought by Habeas Corpus into the 
Queen's Bench, and prayed to be dis- 
charged upon the illegality of the commit- 
ment. The three puisne judges refused to 
interfere upon the authority of lord Shafts- 
bury's case, and the prisoners were re- 
manded, contrary to the opinion of lord 
chief justice Holt, one of the ablest judges 
that ever presided in that court. He was of 
opinion, that what the House had called a 
breach of privilege was not a breach of pri- 
vilege, nor could their judgment make it 
so, nor conclude that court from determin- 
ing contrary ; and he says, ' When the 
House of Commons exceed their legal 
bounds and authority, their acts are wrong- 
ful, and cannot be justified more than the 
acts of private men : that there was no 
question but their authority is from the 
law, and as it i& circumscribed, so it may 
be exceeded. To say they are judges of 
their own privilege and their own author- 
ity, and nobody else, is to make their pri- 
vileges to be as they would have them. If 
there be a wrongful imprisonment by the 
House of Commons, what court shall de- 
liver the party ? Shall we say there is no re- 
dress ; and that we are not able to execute 
those laws upon which the liberty of the 
Queen's people subsists ? To conclude, all 
courts are so far judges of their own privi- 
leges, and entrusted with a power to vindi- 
cate themselves, that they may punish for 
contempts ; but to make them, or any court, 
final judges of them, exclusive of every- 
body else, is to introduce a state of confu- 
sion, by making every man judge in his 
own cause, and subverting the measures of 
all jurisdictions.' What says another 
learned lawyer, Mr Serjeant Hawkins, in 
his Pleas of the Crown, p. no? — In com- 
menting upon lord Shaftsbury's case, he 
says, ' But if it be demanded in case a sub- 
ject should be committed by either of those 
Houses for a matter manifestly out of their 
jurisdiction, what remedy can he have ? I 



answer, that it cannot well be imagined 
that the law, which favours nothing more 
than the liberty of the subject, should give 
us a remedy against commitments by the 
king himself, appearing to be illegal, and 
yet give us no manner of redress against a 
commitment by our fellow-subjects, equally 
appearing to be unwarranted.' I'o this I 
may add the dictum of the present speaker 
of the House of Commons when counsel, ^ 
who is reported to have said, that had he 
the honour to preside in any court of just- 
ice, he should no more regard the resolu- 
tions of that House, than the resolutions of 
a set of drunken porters. Some apology 
may be made for the judges in the case 
of the Queen v. Paty & alias. They might 
connive at a stretch of power in the House 
of Commons, for fear of weakening the 
dignity and independence of the House : 
and if ever that can be justifiable, it was so 
then, because the House was truly honour- 
able and independent ; for no placeman or 
pensioner was then capable of sitting in 
that House. Very different is it at this time: 
the House swarms with placemen and pen- 
sioners, and the people want a barrier to 
guard them from the invasions of their own 
representatives. 

But if such a dangerous position is to be 
established as that, though the order of the 
House be apparently illegal, no court or 
magistrate can give redress, a door will be 
opened through the House of Commons to 
elude all those excellent laws which our 
ancestors have procured for the preserva- 
tion of our hberties, and to overturn the 
fundamental principles of the constitution. 
But let us hope that by such weak author- 
ities as the three cases cited, the hberties of 
England are not to be determined. In an- 
other letter I will trouble you with my senti- 
ments upon the privileges of the House of 
Commons, and the warrant of commitment.^ 
I am, 
My Lord and Gentlemen, 
Your most humble servant, 
G. W. 



^ Sir Fletcher Norton. — Edit. 

^ "This promised letter did not appear, though 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



479 



LETTER XCV. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 9 April, 1771. 

The arguments used in defence of 
the late proceedings of tlie House of Com- 
mons would have a considerable weight 
with me, if I could persuade myself that 
the present House of Commons were really 
in that independent state in which the con- 
stitution meant to place them. If I could 
be satisfied that their resolutions were not 
previously determined in the king's cabinet, 
that no personal resentment was to be 
gratified, nor any ministerial purpose to be 
answered, under pretence of asserting their 
privileges, I own I should be very unwilling 
to raise or encourage any question between 
the strict right of the subject, and that dis- 
cretionary power which our representatives 
have assumed by degrees, and which, until 
of late years, they have very seldom abused. 
While the House of Commons form a real 
representation of the people, while they 
preserve their place in the constitution, 
distinct from the Lords, and independent of 



tlie same subject is pursued in the following 
letter, as well as under the more dignified signa- 
ture of Junius, and occurs in the letters with 
this subscription, No. XLIV. 

To the arguments and opinions both there and 
here cited upon the authority of royal proclama- 
tions, and powers or privileges of parliament, the 
editor will, on this occasion, take the liberty of 
adding the following decision on the same point 
by that great and constitutional judge, lord chief 
justice Holt. 

, ' In the reign of queen Anne, in 1704, several 
freemen of the borough of Aylesbury had been 
refused the liberty of voting at an election for a 
member of parliament, though thej' proved their 
qualifications as such : the law in this case im- 
poses a fine on the returning officer of ;iCioo for 
every such offence. On this pi-inciple they ap- 
plied to lord chief justice Holt, who desired the 
officer to be arrested. The House of Commons, 
alarmed at this step, made an order of their 
House to make it penal for either judge, counsel, 
or attorney, to assist at the trial ; however, the 
lord chief justice, and several lawyers, were 
hardy enough to oppose this order, and brought 
it on in the King's Bench. The House, highly 
irritate-.l at this contempt of their orders, sent a 
Serjeant at arms for the judge to appear before 
them ; but that resolute defender of the laws 



the crown, I think to contend with J:hem 
about the limits of their privileges would 
be contending with ourselves. 1 But the 
question will be materially altered, if it 
should appear that instead of preserving 
the due balance of the constitution, they 
have thrown their whole weight into the 
same scale with the crown, and that their 
privileges, instead of forming a barrier 
against the encroachments of the other 
branches of the legislature, are made sub- 
servient to the views of the sovereign, and 
employed, under the direction of the 
minister, in the persecution of individuals, 
and the oppression of the people. In this 
case it would be the duty of every hon- 
est man to stand stricdy to his right ; — 
to question every act of such a House of 
Commons with jealousy and suspicion, and 
wherever their pretended privileges trenched 
upon the known laws of the land, in the 
minutest instance, to resist them with a 
determined and scrupulous exactness. To 
ascertain the fact, ^\•e need only consider 
in what manner parliaments have been 
managed since his Majesty's accession. 

He found this country in that state of 
perfect union and happiness which good 



bade him, with a voice of authority, begone ; on 
which they sent a second message by their 
speaker, attended by as many members as 
espoused the measure. After the speaker had 
delivered his message, his Lordship replied to him 
in these remarkable words : " Go back to your 
chair, JNIr Speaker, within these five minutes, or 
3'ou may depend on't I'll send you to Newgate : 
you speak of your authority, but I tell you I sit 
here as an interpreter of the laws, and a distri- 
butor of justice, and, were the whole House of 
Commons in your belly, I will not stir one foot." 
The Speaker \ws.s> prndait enough to retire, and 
the House were equally prudent to let the affair 
drop.' — Edit. 

-" The necessity of securing the House of 
Commons against the king's power, so that no 
interruption might be given either to the attend- 
ance of the members in parliament, or to the 
freedom of debate, was the foundation of parlia- 
mentary privilege ; and we may observe in all 
the addresses of new appointed speakers to the 
sovereign, the utmost privilege they demand is 
llbertj"- of speech and freedom from arrests. The 
very word privilege means no more than Immu- 
nity, or a safeguard to the party who possesses 
It, and can never be construed into an active 
power of invading the rights of others. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



government naturally produces, and which 
a bad one has destroyed. He promised to 
abolish all distin-ctions of party, and kept 
his word by declaring lord Bute his favour- 
ite and minister, by proscribing the whole 
Whig interest of England, and by filling 
every place of trust and profit under his 
government with professed Tories, notorious 
Jacobites, and Scotchmen of all denomina- 
tions. He abolished no distinctions but 
those which are essential to the safety of the 
constitution. King, Lords, and Commons, 
which should for ever stand clear of each 
other, were soon melted down into one 
common m.ass of power, while equal care 
was taken to draw a line of separation 
between the legislature and the people, and 
more particularly between the representative 
and the constituent body of the commons. 
The Lower House distinguished them- 
selves by an eager compliance with every 
measure that could be supposed to gratify 
the king personally, or to humour the vin- 
dictive passions of his royal mother. [When 
Mr Wilkes was to be punished, they made 
no scruple about the privileges of parlia- 
ment ; and although it was as well known 
as any matter of public recoid and uninter- 
rupted custom could be, that the viernbers 
of either House are privileged, except in 
case of treason, felony, or breach of the 
peace, they declared without hesitation that 
privilege of parliament did not extend to 
the case of a seditious libel ; and undoubt- 
edly they would have done the same if Mr 
Wilkes had been prosecuted for any other 
misdemeanour whatsoever.] It was upon 
that occasion that sir Fletcher Norton, the 
patron of privilege, declared in the House, 
that, if he were a judge in Westminster 
Hall, he should regard a vote of the House 
of Commons no more than a resolution of 
a company of drunken porters.— To show 
us his politeness, he preserves his style ;— 
to show us his morality, he changes his 
opinion. 

The House of Lords have not been less 
pliant in surrendering the rights of the 
peerage, whenever it has suited the purposes 
of the cabinet. They joined heartily in the 



vote above-mentioned, and when they were 
called upon to support that enormous vio- 
lation of all law, truth, and reason, which 
was perpetrated by the House of Com- 
mons in the case of the Middlesex election, 
they gave up that reciprocal check and 
controul by which the balance between the 
three estates can alone be preserved, and 
were content to bury their own privileges 
under the ruins of the constitution. — The 
influence of the crown over the resolutions 
of both Houses continues to operate with 
equal force, though now it assumes a differ- 
ent appearance. The liberty of the press, 
besides giving a daily personal offence to 
the Princess of Wales, must always be 
formidable, therefore always odious, to such 
a government as the present. Prosecutions 
had been attempted without success. The 
privilege of parliament which had been so 
shamefully surrendered to answer one min- 
isterial purpose, must now be as violently 
asserted to answer another. [The ministry 
are of a sudden grown wonderfully careful 
of privileges which their predecessors were 
as ready to invade. The known laws of 
the land, the rights of the subject, the 
sanctity of charters, and the reverence due 
to our magistrates, must all give way, with- 
out question or resistance, to a privilege of 
which no man knows either the origin or 
the extent. The House of Commons judge 
of their own privileges without appeal : — 
they may take offence at the most innocent 
action, and imprison the person, who 
offends them, during their arbitrary will 
and pleasure. The party has no remedy ; 
— he cannot appeal from their jurisdiction ; 
and if he questions the privilege, which he 
is supposed to have violated, it becomes an 
aggravation of his offence. Surely, Sir, 
this doctrine is not to be found in Magna 
Charta. If it be admitted without hmit- 
ation, I affirm that there is neither law nor 
liberty in this kingdom. We are the slaves 
of the House of Commons, and, through 
them, we are the slaves of the king and 
his ministers.] 

The mode in which the House have pro- 
ceeded against the city magistrates can 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



neither be reconciled to natural justice, nor 
even to the common forms of decency. — 
They begin with shutting their doors against 
all strangers, the usual name by which 
they describe their constituents. Some of 
tlieir debates appear in the public papers. 
The offence, if any, is certainly not a new 
one. We have the debates as regularly 
preserved as the journals of parliament ;i 
nor can there be any honest reason for 
conceahng them. Mr Onslow however 
thinks it necessary to persecute the press, 
and the House of Commons is mean enough 
to take part in his caprices. Lord North, 
who had so lately rewarded the reverend 
Mr Scott with the best living in the king's 
gift, for heaping invectives equally duU and 
virulent upon some of the most respectable 
characters in the kingdom, is now shame- 
less enough to support a motion against 
the liberty of the press with the whole in- 
fluence^ of the crown. [That their practice 
might be every way conformable to their 
principles, the House proceeded to advise 
the crown to publish a proclamation uni- 
versally acknowledged to be illegal. Mr 
Morcton publicly protested against it before 
it was issued ; and lord Mansfield, though 
not scrupulous to an extreme, speaks of it 
with horror. It is remarkable enough that 
the very men who advised the proclamation, 
and who hear it arraigned every day both 
within doors and without, are not daring 
enough to utter one word in its defence, 
nor have tliey ventured to take the least 
notice of Mr Wilkes for discharging the 
persons apprehended under it.] 

The pretended trial of the lord mayor 
and Mr Ohver resembled the dark business 
of a Spanish inquisition, rather than the 
fair proceedings of an English court of 
judicature. These gentlemen, as magis- 
trates, had nothing to regard but the obli- 

^ Grey's Collection of Debates, in ten volumes, 
was published under the direction of the late 
Arthur Onslow, Esq. 

^ The following is a copy of the minutes of 
the House of Commons, of March 20, 1771, here 
referred to. 

' That James Morgan, clerkof the lord mayor, 
do at the table expunge the minutes taken before 
the lord mayor, relative to the messenger of this 



gation of their oaths, and the execution of 
the laws. If they were convinced that the 
speaker's warrant was not a legal authority 
to the messenger, it necessarily followed 
that, when he was charged upon oath with 
a breach of the peace, they imist\\o\^ him to 
bail. They had no option. Yet how have 
they been treated? Their judges had been 
partially summoned, by Treasury mandates, 
pressing attendance, and demanding a vote 
of condemnation. They were tried and 
condemned at midnight, without being 
heard, by themselves or their counsel, on 
the only point on which their justification 
could possibly depend. — In short. Sir, a 
question, strictly of jurisdiction, was re- 
ferred to numbers, and carried like a com- 
mon ministerial measure. Their next step 
was to force the lord mayor's clerk, by the 
terror of a prison, to erase the record of a 
judicial proceeding, held regularly before 
the chief magistrate of the city. Lord 
North himself made the motion, and de- 
clared that the constitution could not be 
safe, until it was carried into effect. They 
then resolved that all prosecutions for the 
assault (which, though charged upon oath, 
they call a pretended one) should be 
stopped. I wish that grave and sober men 
would consider, independently of the other 
questions before us, how far this particular 
precedent may extend. If the House of 
Commons may interpose, in a single in- 
stance, between the subject, who complains, 
and the laws, which ought to protect, I see 
no reason why they may not, at any time, 
by their vote, stop the whole course of 
justice through the kingdom. Besides the 
injury done to the subject, their granting a 
noli prosequi is in effect an encroachment 
upon the royal prerogative. 2 

Many circumstances of insult have been 
mixed with these measures of violence. — 



House, giving security for his appearance at the 

next general quarter-sessions of the peace ; and 

he accordingly at the table expunged the same. 

' Motion made, and question proposed, 

' That no other prosecution, suit, or proceed- 
ing, be commenced, or carried on, for, or on 
account of, the said pretended assault, or false 
imprisonment. 

' It passed in the affirmative.' — Edit. 
31 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Their pretended lenity to the lord mayor, 
which he nobly refused to accept of, 
amounted only to an offer of the garrets of 
the House for the place of his confinement 
instead of the Tower ; and, though it be of 
less moment, it is still worth observing, 
that the indignity offered to the city is 
aggravated by the time expressly chosen for 
imprisoning their chief magistrate. Not 
content with interrupting all city business, 
ihey fixed upon Easter, because it is the 
chief city festival, and found a contemptible 
gratification in putting a stop to the amuse- 
ments usual at this season, and depriving a 
pubhc charity of the customary collections, 
which they knew must be reduced to no- 
thing by the absence of the lord mayor. 

Nothing remained but to keep up a terror 
and alarm through the kingdom by ap- 
pointing committees of inquiry. This 
double star-chamber was moved for long 
after midnight, and lists partially sent 
round by the messengers of the Treasury. — 
Where will these arbitrary, iniquitous pro- 
ceedings end'? The ministry, I doubt not, 
have a plan prepared, but it is such a one, 
as they neither dare openly avow, nor 
uniformly adhere to. One day they appoint 
committees of inquisition to sit de die in 
diem ; — the next thing we hear is that the 
committees are adjourned, and the mem- 
bers of them dispersed into the country. — 
After advising the king, very unnecessarily, 
to go to parhament, they come to him., 
while his equipage is in waiting, contradict 

^ The passages in this letter which are placed 
within brackets, are retranscribed by the author, 
and added as notes to his Letter XLIV., pub- 
lished in his own edition under the signature of 
Junius, where the reader will still find them. 

The messengers were indicted in defiance of 
the resolutions of the House of Commons, and 
true bills were found against them, but further 
proceedings were stopped by the attorney-gen- 
eral entering a 7toli proseqzci. As the arguments 
urged by Mr Adair, who was of counsel for the 
printers, on showing cause against this measure, 
are extremely curious, and not generally known, 
we shall subjoin them for the information of the 
reader, and for the better elucidation of this and 
other letters upon the subject of this important 
dispute. 

Mr Adair, in pursuance of notice, attended 
the attorney-general, Mr De Grey, on the 17th 
of May, 1771, and after the indictment and an 



their own advice, and endeavour to stagger 
his resolution, at the moment when he has 
most occasion for it. They alone are 
answerable for all the indignities heaped 
upon the king's person, since they could 
not but foresee, that the people would take 
the earliest opportunity of resenting the 
imprisonment of their magistrates. 

When the Princess of Wales was named 
in the House of Commons, where was 
that zeal which some people boast of for 
their royal master? The mother of their 
sovereign was branded by name, as the 
authoress of all our calamines, and the 
assertion passed without censtire or contra- 
diction. 

Sir, I most truly lament the condition to 
which we are reduced ; and the more so, 
because there is but one remedy for it, and 
that remedy has been repeatedly refused. — 
A dissolution of the parliament would re- 
store tranquillity to the people, and to the 
king the affections of his subjects : the pre- 
sent House of Commons have nothing to 
expect but contempt, detestation, and re- 
sistance. This violent state of things can- 
not long continue. Either the laws and 
constitution must be preserved by a dread- 
ful appeal to the sword ; or (what probably 
is intended by the present system of mea- 
sures), the people will grow weary of their 
condition, and surrender every thing into 
the king's hands, rather than submit to'be 
trampled upon any longer by five hundred 
of their equals. 

A WHIG.i 



affidavit of the defendant had been read, spoke 
as follows : — 

' It requires no arguments to show, that though 
the entering a noli proseqici on prosecutions at 
the suit of the king only, is an undoubted prero- 
gative of the crown ; yet like all other preio- 
gatives, it is intended for the general good of the 
subject, and not for the hindrance or interruption 
of public justice. 

' It is indeed a discretionary power, but it is to 
be exercised not according to an arbitrary but a 
sound and legal discretion. It is for this reason, 
Sir, that it is not left to the wanton caprice of a 
favourite, or the arbitrary will of a minister, to 
be executed at pleasure, but it is deposited as a 
public trust in the hands of the attorney-general, 
that the exercise of it may be directed by his 
knowledge of the laws and constitution of the 
kingdom. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



483 



LETTER XCVI. 
For the Public Advertiser, 

15 April, 1 77 1. 
to the earl of suffolk. 
My Lord, 

The singularity of your late con- 



'Many reasons may be suggested why this 
power should be most sparingly exercised in 
cases of prosecution by indictment. 

' Though the king's name is necessarily used 
as the general guardian of the laws, there is 
another party concerned in indictments, the 
injured party, who is for the most part the real, 
as the king is the nominal prn";-»cutor. 

' The practice too of entering a noli prosequi 
on indictments is but of modern date. 

' In the case of Goddard and Smith in the 6th 
Mod. 262, Holt, chief justice, said, " He had 
known it thought very hard that the attorney- 
general should enter noli prosequi upon indict- 
ments, and that it began first to be practised in 
the latter end of king Charles the Second's reign ; 
and he ordered precedents to be searched, if any 
were, in Mr Attorney Palmer, or Nottingham's 
time;" and at another day he declared, "that 
in all king Charles the First's time there was no 
precedent of a noli proseqiii on an indictment.' 

' I therefore submit to you, that (sitting here 
to determine upon the application of a power so 
recent in its conmiencement, and of which we 
are told by so respectable an authority, that it has 
been looked upon as a hardship in itself,) you 
will requix-e the most cogent reasons to induce 
you to exert it upon this or any other occasion. 

' Those reasons must arise either from the con- 
duct of the prosecutor, the personal situation and 
circum-stance of the defendant, or the subject 
matter of the prosecution. 

' I do not find from the affidavit of the de- 
fendant, which is the only information I have 
had of the grounds of his application to you, 
that he complains of any particular hardship 
or oppression, arising either from unnecessary 
delay, imusual rigour, or any other misconduct 
in the prosecutor : he must therefore expect the 
extraordinary interposition of the prerogative in 
his behalf, in this instance, either from some- 
thing peculiarly favourable in his personal situa- 
tion, which entitles him to the protection of the 
crown, or from the charge against him being 
totally groundless and unfit to be discussed in a 
court of justice. 

' As to the first of these points, if we Gonslder 
Mr Whittam not being a magistrate's constable, 
or any other officer intrusted with the execution 
of the laws, but acting merely in a private 
capacity, as wantonly assaulting one of the 
king's subjects, in his own house, who was not 
even accuscKl cf any crime, and violently at- 
tempting to deprive him of his liberty ; if, I say, 
we consider him in this point of view, lie can 



duct seemed to claim some attention from 
the public, which you do not, I presume, 
think you have entirely escaped : but since 
by their silence they either think you su- 
perior to shame, or below the dignity of 
revenge, I cannot help giving to them what 
I owe on this occasion, which, had I only 
considered the gratification of a passion, I 

hardly be thought a fit object of the royal favour 
and protection : but if we view him in the light 
in which he has thought proper to place himself 
by his own affidavit, he will be found, if possible, 
still less entitled to that exertion of prerogative 
for which he has applied. He tells you. Sir, 
that he is a messenger of the House of Commons ; 
that in that character, and acting under the 
express orders and authoritj^ of that House, he 
did the fact with which he is charged in the 
indictment. Does he mean, Sir, that you should 
consider this as a reason for granting a noli pro- 
sequi ? When was it heard before that an exer- 
tion of prerogative was necessary to support the 
authority and privileges of the House of Com- 
mons ? When was that House known to sue to the 
servants of the crown to screen their officers from 
the laws, or protect them from the indignation 
of an inconsiderable printer ? 

' I believe when any of their privileges have 
been really invaded, they have never been found 
wanting either in power or inclination to sup- 
port them ; and I am satisfied that if the House 
were now sitting, Mr Whittam would not have 
dared to make an application so manifestly tend- 
ing to expose their privileges and authority to 
ridicule and contempt. But, Sir, I am persuaded 
that the honour and dignity of the House of 
Commons are safe in your hands, and that you 
will suflfer no act to proceed from you that can 
throw even an oblique imputation upon them. 

' If there is for these reasons nothing in Mr 
Whittam's personal situation, or circumstances, 
which can entitle him to an extraordinary inter- 
position in his favour, it remains only to be con- 
sidered whether any motive can be suggested 
from the subject-matter of the prosecution to in- 
duce j'ou to put a stop to it by an exertion of the 
royal prerogative. 

'The charge set forth in the indictment, and 
not denied by the defendant's affidavit, is for 
assaulting and imprisoning the prosecutor, Mr 
Miller. It will not be contended that there ap- 
pears any thing upon the face of the indictment 
oppressive, illegal, unfit to come before a court 
of justice, or which affords any mothx; whatso- 
ever for granting the 7ioli proseqjci ; the reason, 
therefore. If any, must arise from the matters set 
forth by the defendant's affidavit. The affidavit 
states, that the defendant Is one of the mes- 
sengers of the House of Commons ; that the 
speaker's warrant for apprehending the prose- 
cutor was issued by order of the House, and that, 
in consequence thereof, the defendant, to whom 
the warrant was delivered, did make the .arrest 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



should have sooner done, I own I now 
do it with some distrust of my own abilities, 



with which he is charged in the indictment, and 
that he used no violence in so doing, other than 
seizing Mr Miller by the arm as is usual in 
arrests. 

' I apprehend it is not incumbent upon me here 
to consider, as I submit it is not competent for 
you, Sir, to determine in this summary manner, 
whether the matters here set forth do or do not 
amount to a good defence, or legal justification. 
We are not now to try the cause ; but you. Sir, 
I am confident, will not interpose the prerogative 
of the king to prevent our trying it in the regu- 
lar course before the proper jurisdiction, unless 
the prosecution, as it now appears before you, is 
so clearly and manifestly groundless, and unfit 
for discussion in a court of law, that it would be 
an abuse and mockery of public justice to bring 
it to a trial. If the authority under which Mr 
Whittam alleges himself to have acted, was not 
competent to authorize the fact which he com- 
mitted, or if that authority never was in fact 
delegated to him, in 2ither of those cases the 
prosecution is well founded in law. If any doubt 
or question can be raised on either of these 
points, it is not so clearly groundless as to justify 
the putting a stop to it by prerogative, before 
those questions are legally determined. 

' It might well be questioned, whether the 
House of Commons has any power, by the laws 
or constitution of this kingdom, to authorize the 
issuing of such a warrant as that under colour of 
which Mr Miller was apprehended. 

* It might be said, and .supported too by the 
greatest authorities, that they cannot by any act 
of theirs singly, create any new power or privi- 
lege to themselves. That there was a time when 
they evidently neither possessed nor claimed any 
such power as that in question ; and when the 
authority of an act of parliament was thought 
necessary to punish even so undeniable a breach 
of privilege, as the assaulting the person of a 
member attending upon his duty in parliament. 
The statute, Sir, which I here allude to, is the 
nth of H. VI. c. II, which was made to extend 
the provisions of 5th H. IV. c. 6, for punishment 
of assaults on the servants of members of parlia- 
ment when attending on their masters in their 
duty, to the persons of the members themselves. 
It might be urged, that the power in question 
has never been given them by any act of parlia- 
ment, and that if there ever was a time when 
they did not possess it, they can by no other 
means have legally acquired it. All this and 
much more might be said, if it were necessary to 
dispute the authority of the House of Commons 
to issue the warrant for the commitment of Mr 
Miller ; but it is sufficient for me at present to 
contend, that whether they had or had not the 
power, they never did in fact give the defendant 
any authority whatsoever to make the arrest in 
question. 

' The warrant. Sir, under colour of which Mr 
Whittam acted, is a warrant purporting to be 
issued in pursuance of an order of the House of 



in doing justice to the undertaking. Your 
Lordship must be aware that it is generally 



Commons, and signed Fletcher Norton, speaker. 
But, Sir, the order of the House, as it is recited 
in the warrant itself, is for taking Mr Miller into 
the custody of the serjeant at arms, or his 
deputy ; and Mr Whittam is described in the 
direction of the very same warrant to be neither 
the one nor the other of these. No authority 
whatsoever can be conveyed to Mr Whittam by 
virtue of an order, in which ha is not named, and 
which particularly points out certain persons, in 
contradiction from all others. This warrant, 
therefore (so far as it relates to Mr Whittam), 
appears to be issued by the speaker, merely of 
his own autb-ority, unauthorized by any order of 
the House of Commons. Has the speaker any 
power to commit, unless he derives it from the 
orders of the House ? If he has not, which must 
be granted, he is bound strictly and literally to 
pursue that order which creates his authority : 
as far as he exceeds it, he acts without authority 
himself, and most clearly can convey none to any 
other person. Mr Whittam therefore, in this 
case, acting without 'any legal authority what- 
ever, in the arrest of the prosecutor, a prosecu- 
tion grounded upon that cannot be considered as 
totally void of foundation. But supposing for a 
moment that the prosecution was frivolous and 
ill-grounded, I submit that that alone would not 
be a reason for the extraordinary interposition 
of the crown. If it would in this case, it must in 
every other ; every defendant who fancied him- 
self unjustly prosecuted would apply for protec- 
tion to the crown ; and almost every indictment 
must first be tried by the attorney-general before 
it could come regularly into a court of justice. I 
presume you will conceive it was not for these 
purposes that this prerogative was vested in your 
hands ; and that there must appear some strong 
reasons peculiar to the case to show why it is 
improper and imfit for public discussion, besides 
merely that of the prosecution being ill-grounded, 
to induce you to make this extraordinary inter- 
position. I submit to you. Sir, with great defer- 
ence, that there appears no such reasons in this 
case. Every motive of policy and prudence 
seems to weigh on the other side. The question 
to be tried is the most important that can well be 
conceived. The privileges of the House of Com- 
mons on the one side, and the liberties of the 
people of England on the other, are said to be ma- 
terially affected. Perhaps indeed it might have 
been wished that this great question had never 
been started, or brought to the public view, by 
issuing the warrant in question. But when it has 
been already so much agitated, and has engross- 
ed the attention of the public, it seems neces- 
sary, for the satisfaction and quiet of the king- 
dom, that it should proceed to a solemn and 
legal determination in a court of justice. If, 
therefore. Sir, the House of Commons had no 
authority by law to! authorize Mr Whittam to 
make the arrest upon the prosecutor, or if, in 
fact, no authority was delegated to him, in either 
of these cases he has illegally assaulted an 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



485 



a matter of some degree of delicacy to un- 
dertake the discussion of any part or sys- 



innocent man, and deprived him of his liberty ; 
and the entering a noli prosequi would be an 
obstruction of pubHc justice. If on the other 
hand the Hou^^e of Commons had a legal author- 
ity, and regularljr delegated the execution of it 
to IVIr Whittam, the public should be convinced 
of it by a discussion and determination in a 
court of law ; and the granting the 7ioli prosequi 
in that case, would tend to mislead many people 
into an opinion that it was done to screen an 
offender from the laws, who had no legal justih- 
cation in a court of justice : I therefore submit 
to you, Sir, for these reasons, that you, as attor- 
ney-general, will not think proper in this case to 
grant a 7ioli proseqiii.' 

Mr Attorney-General. ' Do you produce any 
evidence?' 

3Ir Adair. 'We offer no other evidence 
than what appears in the affidavit of the defend- 
ant himself and the warrant to which it refers.' 

Mr Attorney-General. ' You are extremely 
right in this, that it is not at all a fit thing for the 
attorney-general to try either the fact upon 
which the defendant is indicted, or to determine 
the law. The only question is this, whether it is 
fit for the king to interpose as the prosecutor of 
this offence ? That, I take it, should be the 
ground of your argument, and the point upon 
which J expected satisfaction. The affidavit 
itself states the messenger of the House of Com- 
mons to be acting under the authority of the 
House of Commons ; and if this was the only 
way in which that question could be brought 
before a court of law, I should be obliged to give 
an opinion whether it ought, or whether it ought 
not. 

' The only point I have to consider i.s, whether 
it be fit for the name of the crown to appear in 
prosecuting one who appears to be the mes- 
senger of the House of Commons, and to be 
armed by the authority of that House for doing 
the very thing he has done under the orders of 
the House ? I don't mean to pass over the ob- 
jection which has been made, that the speaker 
of the House, by orders of the House, directing 
the warrant to a person not named in such 
order, whether that order extends only to arrest- 
ing the prosecutor, and taking him into the 
custody of the Serjeant at arms, or his deputy : 
I dare say I take Mr Adair's objection perfectly 
right ; the order of the House is for taking him 
into the custody of the Serjeant at arms, nor his 
deputy ; and the objection is, that the person in 
whose custody the prosecutor was originally 
taken, is neither the serjeant at arms, nor his 
deputy ; and the doubt you raise upon it is, 
whether the speaker of the House of Commons 
can authorize another person to arrest and bring 
him into the custody of the serjeant at arms, or 
his deputy; for the serjeant at arms, nor his 
deputy, is the proper and the only custody I 
know of belonging to the House, and the gentle- 
man's argimient is, that in point of the arrest it 
cannot be made without the serjeant, or deputy 



teni of politics, as it is of some difficulty to 
avoid the share of imputations which are 

serjeant, with respect to the orders of the House 
of Commons, and the direction of the warrant 
by the Speaker, which is a question of law to be 
sure. It has been constant in point of practice 
for the messengers to be employed (in the 
orders of the House, and for other than mes- 
sengers to be employed) upon the very same 
occasion. There is nothing so constant as the 
messengers all to be employed : there are some 
few instances where more than the messengers 
have been employed upon these occasions. 
'I'he difficulty upon it was, whether they should 
or not be inserted in the warrant ; or whether, 
if they were not inserted in the warrant, it 
could be construed under the general descrip- 
tion of the Serjeant at arms, or his deputy ; or 
whether that authority could go to warrant those 
which might be appointed by the serjeant at 
arms, or his deputy, upon that occasion. It was 
thought more proper to make a warrant directed 
to the person to be employed, though it was 
mentioned in the orders of the House that the 
custody was to be that of the serjeant at arms, 
or his deputy, according to the usual form of 
their orders. 

' But the only point for me to consider is, how 
far it is fit the king should be the prosecutor of a 
servant of the House of Commons, in the execu- 
tion of a privilege which they now claim, which 
they have claimed for ages, and have been in the 
possession of for ages, and that the king should 
be brought into a proceeding against the servant 
of the House as a prosecutor. The noli prosequi 
is called a prerogative right of the crown ; it 
amounts to no more than this, that the king 
makes his election whether he will continue or 
not to be the prosecutor upon an indictment, and 
the noliproseqici is entered in the same words in 
case of the crown as of a private person. The 
entry upon the record is exactly the same by the 
attorney-general as by a private plaintiff upon 
record in any civil suit. 

' I did expect that you would have given me 
some reason for entertaining an opinion, that it 
was decent and fit for the crown to continue and 
stand forth as a prosecutor of the messenger of 
the House of Commons, acting under their di- 
rection, in maintenance of a privilege they have 
claimed and held so long. That is the only point 
I put it upon. The affidavit, as made by the 
defendant, makes it necessary to consider him as 
an officer of the House. 

' I did not indeed expect any disputes upon it, 
or that it would be put upon so small a ground : 
the reason I expected was, that it was becoming 
an officer of the crown, in the name of the crown, 
to continue a prosecution by the crown, against 
the messenger of the House of Commons, acting 
under the authority of the House of Commons.' 

Mr Adair expressing a doubt whether it would 
be proper for him to make any reply to this, the 
attorney-general said he should be glad to hear 
him. 

Mr Adair. 'With regard to what you have 



486 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



indiscriminately thrown on all who submit 
their anonymous opinions to the public. 
Though these reproaches may fall on those 
whose names would give some credit to 
their assertions, yet while they adopt the 
common method of hirehngs, their writings 
must expect the same treatment. With 
whatever circumstances any object of my 
notice might be attended, I should expect 
criticism, and I hope I could bear it with 
temper. I cannot however help consider- 
ing it as a. lucky circum.stance, that the first 
production I ever ventured to give to the 
public, excludes the possibility of any im- 
putation, as the actions I shall condemn 
admit not the possibility of defence. Be- 
fore I arraign your subsequent conduct, 

suggested, it is true the entry upon record is the 
same in the case of the crown as of a private 
person ; yet in a prosecution by indictment the 
crown is not solely concerned. To make the 
case exactly similar, it should be an information 
ex officio, or any other really and truly a crown 
prosecution, and then the entering noli prosequi 
upon that, would be the same as upon private 
actions. But in the case of indictments, the king 
being in fact a nominal prosecutor, though his 
name is necessary, yet the injured party being 
the true prosecutor (who applies to the laws of 
his country for justice against the offender, who 
has violated those laws and particularly injured 
him), if in that case the king puts a stop to the 
prosecution, by withdrawing his name from it, 
it is the same in effect, though not in form, as if 
he sent his mandate, and said that prosecution 
should not go on ; because if he withdraws his 
name from it, that prosecution cannot, by the 
laws, go any further ; the prosecutor himself 
cannot proceed in his own name ; the withdraw- 
ing that name has the same effect as the actual 
interposition of prerogative by the attorney- 
general, and operates the same as a pardon. Mr 
Whittam being alleged to have acted under the 
authority of the House of Commons, to have had 
a warrant directed to him ; the question is not 
whether the warrant is legal or not, but whether 
it is proper for the crown to put a stop to that 
prosecution, and whether the privileges of the 
House of Commons being said to be concerned, 
any interposition of the crown be necessary to 
support their authority. If Whittam has acted 
in pursuance of the order of the House, if those 
orders are such as the House has a competent 
authority to make, I submit that it cannot be a 
doubt that that matter pleaded or brought in a 
regular manner before a court of justice, would 
be a sufficient defence. If the courts of law are 
of opinion that the House has that authority, and 
that it was regularly delegated to Whittam, they 
would necessarily be of opinion to acquit him ; 



which I mean to do pretty freely, I must 
admire the simple candour with which you 
have declared yourself without principle. 
In the most destructive administrations, 
composed of men perhaps more profligate 
than your Lordship, care has generally 
been taken to save, in some measure, ap- 
pearances with the public ; and although 
the destruction of this constitution has been 
pretty clearly their object, they have never 
ventured openly to avow it : even the duke 
of Grafton did not condemn his own prin- 
ciples, though he avowed and gloried in 
such measures as no man with principle 
could imdertake. Your Lordship is tlie 
first man who ever saved others the trouble 
of accusation. Your protests must remain 



and upon that ground there appears to be no 
necessity for the crown withdrawing itself from a 
prosecution, -which by no possible means can 
prove oppressive or injurious to the defendant. 
If he has acted under a legal authority, he must 
be legally acquitted in a court of justice. But 
if the authority is not sufficient, or not regularly 
conveyed, it is proper, for the sake of justice, 
and the liberty of the subject, that judgment 
should be pronounced upon it in a court of 
law. I believe the prosecutor does not contend, 
that the defendant has been guilty of that kind 
of offence, for which he means to prosecute 
him with any rigour ; he don't mean to oppress 
him, or proceed for the sake of punishment 
only ; whether it is five pounds or five thou- 
sand is indifferent to him ; the only thing he 
wishes is to have the question decided by a legal 
competent jurisdiction. If it comes regularly 
before the court, though perhaps upon this in- 
dictment it could not, but if it does, the question 
is, whether the speaker of the House of Commons 
had a sufficient legal authority to authorize that 
arrest, or whether the defendant has actually 
acted under that authority, such as it was ; and 
I submit to your consideration, whether, upon 
that point, such interposition appears to be 
necessary in this case, either upon behalf of the 
defendant, or of the privilege of the House of 
Commons.' 

Mr Attorney-General. ' I don't put it upon 
the tenderness to Mr Whittam, or the point of 
privilege of the House of Commons, but merely 
upon the foot of decency, as the circumstance_ of 
the crown taking a part in the proscc«tion (which 
they must do if they go on with it) against the 
messenger of the House of Commons, acting 
under the authority of the warrant of the 
speaker, pursuant to an order of the House. '_ 

Mr de Grey, the attorney-general, was after- 
wards chief justice of the Common Pleas, and 
Mr Adair, subsequently, recorder of London. — 
Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



487 



to all posterity a monument of your infamy ; 
and one would almost imagine you design- 
ed they should. You are young, my I^ord : 
you thought it was necessary for a man of 
fashion to engage in public business ; and 
as some of your private connexions happen- 
ed to be in opposition, you went with the 
stream, and opposed. Apparently attach- 
ed to that party, you perhaps thought it a 
civility to adopt and pursue tlieir measures, 
wliatever they were, of opposition ; and 
your vanity was afterwards tickled with an 
offer from administration which your civility 
would not permit you to refuse. You did 
not reflect, or perhaps 5'ou did not know, 
that you was catching at an object which 
was not attended even with the usual ap- 
pearance of honour ; and you did not then 
consider (for I am sure you must now re- 
collect), that you was attaching yourself to 
men from whose connexion that protest, 
which will now be transmitted down with 
ridicule to your posterity, ought to have 
excluded you for ever ; — or perhaps, to 
speak more fairly or more fashionably, you 
thought the force of such declarations was 
no longer of consequence, when the pur- 
pose was answered for which they were 
made. — These reasons are so much below 
a school-boy, that I am sure your Lordship 
would not be wiUing to allege them ; and 
if you have in the world a friend, he will 
not wish you should : but unhappily friend- 
ship is not one of those ruling objects which 
you have been solicitous to preserve, how- 
ever fortunate you vaz.y formerly have bee?t 
in obtaining it. — The man who, without 
honour to support any administration from 
principle, has still craft enough to betray 
all, may perhaps be solicited by every suc- 
cessive minister, or perhaps their credulity 
may be deceived into his friendship ; but 
the poor untaught villain, who can neither 
support with consistency, nor betray with 
decency, will be despised by those whom 
he deserted, and ridiculed by tlie very men 
to whom he has made so capital a sur- 
render. Your Lordship, I believe, sees 
with some uneasiness the truth of the ob- 
servation, and I will give your conscience 



credit for the feelings it must produce ; I 
would therefore consider you, what you 
seem willing to be considered, an object of 
pity rather than of reproach. The situa- 
tion in which you appeared before a whole 
House of Peers, and the trial you then 
underwent, might be an object of triumph 
to some men ; but I hope all hearts were 
not shut to the feehngs of compassion. I 
am willing only to extend reproach to those 
who seem proud of receiving it. The crim- 
inal who is executed at the gallows ought 
not to excite the anger, much less the ex- 
ultations, of the public, whom he has de- 
frauded ; but the villain who has seduced 
him to the commission of the crime for 
which he suffers, and who glories in his 
impudence, has a claim to all we can give 
him — our detestation and our curses. 
The comparison I think you understand, 
and I believe you have sensibility enoughi 
to feel it ; indeed you testified it suf- 
ficiently to those who could observe you 
wished to justify, or at least to excuse, 
so extraordinary a change of principles 
and conduct ; your courage forsook you, 
and you did not dare to rise. 71ie duke 
of Grafton, when he deserted those prin- 
ciples and those connexions to which every 
sentiment of honour ought to have allied 
and bound him, seemed happily to have 
lost all that mauvaise honte with which 
young adventurers like his Grace were 
usually attended, and he creditably told 
us that he gloried in his situation. Your 
Lordship's prostitution was not attended 
with those pecuHar circumstances which 
attended his ; you felt the sacrifice you 
had made, your conscience forced your 
silence, and every man was confounded ; 
administration looked for a notable ad- 
vocate, but were deceived with a re- 
proach which cut them to the quick. 
For your own sake, my Lord, let me 
advise you to consider your own plan, 
and let me appeal to your understanding 
for its acquittal. Your situation by birth 
IS such as put it in your own power to 
have acquitted yourself in life respectably, 
and your connexion with such men as lord 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Rockingham, sir George Saville, the duke 
of Portland, and the duke of Richmond, 
were no disgrace to you. Was your fortune 
encumbered with debt, or sold through ex- 
travagance? Had you a numerous family 
to provide for, whose support you could 
not command from your own establish- 
ment ? Had administration reversed its 
order of governing, and given you any 
security for the preservation of our rights 
and redress of our grievances ? — If any pri- 
vate assurance of this sort has been given 
you, I shall think your conduct has been 
consistent, though it will still be disgrace- 
ful, with respect to your friends in opposi- 
tion. You will not answer any of these 
questions in the affirmative ; nor is it 
necessary you should answer them at all. 
The two first propositions I know to be 
false. The third, if it had existed, would 
before this time have been declared. Thus 
we see a hopeful young peer, possessed of 
an independent fortune, with an only child, 
a daughter, connected with the most hon- 
ourable characters in this kingdom, prosti- 
tuting his honour, and every valuable con- 
sideration of the public, for that of an office, 
independent even of those sweet allure- 
ments which could, one would imagine, 
make the bitter pill go down. For shame, 
my Lord, to throw yourself away under 
such circumstances, at the discretion of 
s^lch an administration ! Had you, like poor 
Whateley, been reduced from a state of in- 
dependence, to the humiliating necessity of 
soliciting your support from administra- 
tion, our reproach would be only turned 
against those who creditably took advan- 
tage of such a situation, and gratified 
themselves with the purchase of an honest 
man's reputation ; and though we con- 
gratulated them on the acquisition which 
they had prudently secured, we should sin- 
cerely pity the object of their triumph. I 
am neither surprised nor shocked at any 
inconsistency in Mr Wedderburne ; his 
profession sets his principles at auction, 
and it is reasonable that the highest bidder 
should command them : but that the earl 
of Suffolk should act such a part, I own 



astonished me ; a man who had every thing 
to lose, and nothing to gain by prostitu- 
tion : that an independent peer of England 
should voluntarily pledge himself to his 
country for the exertion of every right and 
every power, with which the constitution 
had vested him for their service, and should 
after this betray every interest of the pub- 
he, and desert that service, that he should 
in one session repeatedly declare to this 
purport, if not to this tenor ; that he would 
never hereafter be induced, for any con- 
sideration, to herd with men whom he 
considered as enemies to their king and 
country, and in the next deliver over his 
conscience, his right, and his powers into 
their hands at their discretion, and thereby 
include himself in every odious term of 
reproach which he had so liberally bestowed 
on them. There seems something at least 
extraordinary in such conduct ; and we are 
induced, with some curiosity, to enquire, 
for God's sake. Sir, from what considera- 
tion could lord Suffolk be induced to take 
so strong a part with opposition, if he 
intended the next session to betray it } Or if 
he was then sincere in his attachments and 
his professions, what views could he have 
in deserting them ? These are reasonable, 
and I think natural, questions. We cannot 
but commiserate the mortifying state of 
human nature, when we are answered the 
truth, and informed of the circumstances 
attending it. Had you, my IvOrd, been 
entrapped, like poor Yorke, by the prevail- 
ing force which was contained in the per- 
sonal entreaties and solicitations of Majesty, 
and had your honour been seduced and 
struck into compliance, though we should 
abhor the act, we should acquit at least you 
of the guilt ; and you would have had a 
just claim to our pity, unmixed with our 
contempt. But, rny Lord, what are we to 
say when we see a man in your Lordship's 
situation, stooping to so humiliating a con- 
sideration, as to entreat a connexion in 
office with those A^ery men whom you had 
before reviled and despised ? That you 
should, after being answered with an air of 
superiority, that you was at least the third 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



to be considered ; that you should wait 
with patience and resignation, and see 
three men successively refuse such a con- 
nexion, and then accept it under such cir- 
cumstances. Tlie conclusion which we are 
to draw, I leave to your Lordship's feelings 
to determine ; you have had time to reflect 
on your situation, and I would not wish to 
add more to embitter the sweets of office. 
Had this address appeared sooner while 
you was fortund dulcl ebriiis, you would 
perhaps have laughed with lord Sandwich 
at the undertaldng of one who endeavoured 
to prove, that honesty and virtue bad any 
real existence. You would, like the duke of 
Grafton, have perused it at 3'our tea-table, 
and perhaps taken a pride, hke lord Hills- 
borough, that you was dignified with an 
enemy, though you had not, like him, pre- 
served a friend. But I think, my Lord, a 
sufficient time is elapsed, during which 
some intervals of private reflection and 
remorse must have interfered, and the 
flattery of those who purchased must have 
subsided, and left your conscience and Mr 
Grenville to reproach you. For I still 
believe you to consist of that composition, 
which, without virtue enough to avoid pros- 
titution, has still feehng enough to be 
ashamed of it. 
Yorkshire, 7 Mafvh, 1771. HENRICUS. 

[This letter has been misplaced, or would 
have appeared sooner.] 



LETTER XCVII. 

TO THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. 

My Lord, 21 May, 1771. 

In my last address to your Lord- 
ship, I spoke to your feelings. I thought 
your conduct was such as could afford no 
very pleasing reflection ; and I readily be- 
lieved that you was willing to consider the 
tenderness which had been preserved on 
the occasion with that silent gratitude 
which refined and delicate feelings must 
naturally suggest. It was acknowledged 
that lord Suffolk acted without vn-tue or 



without reflection ; and I believe most men 
concurred with me in supposing that you 
had feehng enough to be ashamed of a 
transaction, which you had not courage to 
avoid. The resignation with which you 
seemed to submit to your ignominy was 
some pledge of your delicacy, if not of your 
integrity. You was pitied, I believe, by all 
mankind, and perhaps by some you were 
forgiven ; the transaction sunk, as it might 
be supposed you wished it should, in 
silence and obscurity. It was not, I believe, 
imagined that you would ever be found 
hardy enough to renew the consideration of 
an affair, which every man who felt for you 
must wish to be forgotten. It was not con- 
ceived that so short a time would have 
reconciled you to a measure, which no 
man of understanding could view without 
ridicule. But we hve in an age where no 
inconsistency is irreconcileable, and are go- 
verned by men with whom no villany is in- 
consistent. They have, I suppose, my Lord, 
made a convert of your understanding as 
well as your integrity, and you may be 
indebted to the piety of lord Sandwich for 
a system of ideas more conformable to the 
plan you have pursued. He may have 
taught you, that to repent of successful 
villany is still greater folly than to preserve 
integrity. I congratulate you on the con- 
nexion you have formed, and the acquisi- 
tion you have secured ; especially since you 
have lost nothing but your honour ; a term 
' more adapted to Roman barbarism than 
to the civihzed regulations of English (I 
beg pardon) Scotch pohcy.' — Your Lord- 
ship, I beliese, recollects the inconsistency 
which occasions this address. Your speech 
on the duke of Richmond's motion in the 
House of Lords was a pretty remarkable 
adventure. — Had you contentedly and pro- 
fessedly resigned yourself without attempt- 
ing to reconcile your present with your 
former system, your conduct, believe me, 
would never have called out a second attack 
on so truly contemptible a being. It is the 
singular immodesty of your behaviour which 
I own has tempted me to expose you, as you 
are willing to be an object of pubUc detest- 



490 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ation and disgust. There are few men, 
except Mr Wedderburne and your Lord- 
ship, who would have gone through the 
difficulty of exposing themselves to those 
who had such evidence against them, with 
that happy indifference which we have 
experienced from you both. To preserve 
the hypocrisy of patriotism, after you had 
openly made your compact with corrup- 
tion ; to profess consistency in adhering to 
the words of a protest, on the tenour of 
which your whole conduct is the grossest 
ridicule ; and to possess the characteristical 
firmness of administration in reviving so 
ignominious a consideration, requires more 
courage and intrepidity than most men 
have the good fortune to possess ; but I 
allow your friend Wedderburne has out- 
stripped you. He has modestly ventured 
not only virtually, but directly to attack 
opposition for measures which he himself 
concurred in promoting ; and hears himself 
despised, execrated, detested, without fear, 
and without anger. T^et him excuse me 
when I assure him, with some very allow- 
able pride, that I do not think he has a 
claim to any notice beyond my advice to 
consider, that the power from whence he 
derives very superior abilities, will expect 
and must receive an account to what pur- 
poses they have been employed. — You will 
now perhaps ask me, in all the hypocritical 
simpHcity of St James's, what part had I to 
act, after making a traffic of my abilities, 
which might not have given offence? I 
jusdfied before all mankind the protest 
which I had signed, and the pen of satire 
has been busy to condemn me. Had my 
conduct been different, would it have been 
consistent? Would it have been satisfac- 
tory ? To this I must answer, — You had 
brought yourself, my Lord, into that odious 
situation, where you could neither retreat 

^ The following is a copy of the card : — 

19 June, 1771. 

TO DOMITIAN. 

In your second letter is this remarkable pro- 
mise :— ' Tell the duke of Grafton, that, if he 
should dare to entertain the most distant thought 
of the Admiralty, the whole affair of Mine's 



with decency, nor persevere with integrity ; 
but to have retired from the curses of your 
countrymen would have been remembered, 
I believe, more to your credit as a man, if 
not as a minister ; but I make too great 
allowance, I find, for human nature. I 
have not reflected that the only valuable 
consideration is interest ; and I have forgot 
that influence to which Mr Yorke is in- 
debted for a very hazardous eternity.— For 
the future I shall learn to view things with 
less candour, and observe villany, if not 
without mortification, at least without sur- 
prise. I shall now take my leave of your 
Lordship, probably for ever : but I must 
congratulate you, my Lord, on that ambi- 
tion which has led you to enquire into those 
desirable arcana of a court, by which you 
have learned a sort of loyalty distinct from 
duty to his Majesty, or affection to his 
family ; by which you have found that it 
will be for your interest, and consequently 
for your honour, to attach yourself hereafter 
to men, who, while they act directly con- 
trary to the interest of their countrymen, 
and are indifferent with regard to their 
confidence or esteem, can hug themselves 
among tlie highest of mankind, and ridicule 
the contemptible folly of those whose virtue 
has excluded them from their share in the 
plunder of the public. 

HENRICUS. 



LETTER XCVIII. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 28 June, 1771. 

In answer to the card repeatedly 
addressed to Dofnitian ,'^ he desires it may 
be observed that, although he has not 
altered his sentiments with regard to the 
duke of Grafton, the case has not happened 



patent shall be revived, and published with an 
accumulation of evidence. He at least shall be 
kept under. His Ciceronian eloquence shall not 
save him.' 

As the duke of Grafton has got an higher and 
more lucrative office, it is expected by the public 
that you now fulfil yo7ir ^rot7iise. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



491 



in which he thinks himself bound either by 
the letter or the spirit of his promise to the 
public. The duke is not first lord of the 
Admiralty, 1 nor is he actually in any post in 
which patents can immediately be sold by 
himself ; or by Tommy Bradshaw, or by 
Miss Polly Bradshaw, who, like the moon, 
lives upon the light of her brother's counte- 
nance, and robs him of no small part of his 
lustre. — The fact was notorious. The sale 
of that patent to Mr Hine (the only man 
of merit whom the duke of Grafton ever 
provided for), so far from being denied, was 
publicly defended. Yet the House of Com- 
mons, who pretend to be the grand inquest 
of the nation, suffered this infamous breach 
of trust to pass by without censure or ex- 
amination. For the present, therefore, it 
would answer no good purpose for Domi- 
iian to produce his evidence. But perhaps 
the day of enquiry is not far off. In the 
mean time, to show the duke that Domitian 
does not speak at random, he begs leave to 
remind his Grace that there are three such 
persons in the world as Ross, the agent, — 
Taylor, the house-builder, — and Taylor s 
little boy. — Verbiiin sat.- 

Domitian, upon the whole, thinks he may 
venture to leave the duke of Grafton, or (if 
there be one more odious, more base, and 
more contemptible person of rank in the 
kingdom), that he may safely leave them 
both to the care of Junius.^ 



LETTER XCIX. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, S y^i^y' T-77T- 

Events andcharactersof a similar 
nature recur so often v/ithin the compass of 
a few centuries, that history is in effect 
little more than a repetition. The scenes 

^ His Grace had now rejoined the ministry, 
and held the office of lord privy seal. — Edit. 

^ Ke refers to Junius's two letters to the duke 
of Grafton, No. XLIX. and L., dates, June 22 
and July 9, 1771. — Edit. 

3 A letter under this signature appeared in the 
Public Advertiser in answer to Junius Letter 



and names of the performers are changed, 
but the fable is the same. — I was led to this 
observation by a passage I lately met with 
in a modern French author. The account 
lie gives us of the emperor Valentinian the 
Third deserves our notice : — ' Le premier 
soin de cette princesse fut d'inspirer a son 
fils I'horreur de I'heresie et le respect pour 
I'eglise ;— qualites tres estimables dans un 
souverain, mais qui ne purent couvrir le vice 
d'une education moUe et effdminee. Sa 
mere travailla plus a former sa croyance, 
que son esprit ni ses moeurs ; aussi fut-il 
toujours tres catholique, sans etre jamais 
Chretien.' For the benefit of my lord Suf- 
folk, I shall give you a translation. Mr 
Wheatley, I hear, has got the start of his 
master, and, with the help of a dictionary, 
may do it into English for himself. ' The 
Princess Dowager made it her first care to 
inspire her son with horror against heresy, 
and with a respect for the church ; qualities 
much to be esteemed in a sovereign, but 
not sufficient to conceal the defects of a soft 
effeminate education. His mother took 
more pains to form his belief, than either 
his morals or his understanding, so that he 
was always an excellent catholic without 
ever being a Christian.' I do not mean to 
apply the passage, but merely to save some 
future historian the trouble of drawing a 
new character. 

I am, Sir, 

Your humble servant, 

AN INNOCENT READER. 



LETTER C. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 16 Oct., 1771. 

If the pert youth who cahs him- 
self Afi Old Correspondent,'^ and who 



LIX., and was by him attributed to the late Mr 
Fo.\-. That Junius was inclined to favour, or 
rather, in the words of the concluding paragraph 
of this essay, to spare lord Holland, is obvious 
throucrhout these letters, but will be more par- 
ticularly seen by a reference to Private Letter, 
No. 5. 



492 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



makes free with Junius, does not know 
the difference between contact and collision, 
nor between the friction which produces 
the electrical powers, and the action of flint 
and steel which produces sparks of fire, his 
ignorance must be deplorable. But what 
right has he to change the terms ?— Why 
say contact when Junius says collision ?— 
When this pert youth asks what virtue 
there is in Mr Wilkes, I wish he would tell 
us what fire there is in flint. and steel. It is 
action that makes them sparkle, and, if 
there be any thing combustible in the pas- 
sions of Mr Nash, a single spark may set 
him on fire. 

Again, Junius admits the strict right of 
pressing seamen, but denies the king's 
right to arm his subjects in general, except- 
ing in the case of an invasion. This my 
pretty Black Boy calls a retractation of Ju- 
Nius's first concession, and applies to his 
aged father for an old woman's proverb. — 
Junius speaks of softening the symptoms of 
a disorder. The Black Boy changes the 
terms again, and destroys the allusion. 
The rest of his letter is of a piece with 
these instances ; a misrepresentation of 

^ The following are copies of the letters here 
alluded to, which certainly evince no small 
degree of acrimony : — 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 4 Nov. 1771. 

You have inserted in your paper of 
Saturday last, a short, but infamous, paragraph, 
addressed to lord chief justice Mansfield, and 
signed Junius, alleging that his Lordship had 
admitted to bail a man at the intercession of 
three of his countrymen, who Junius presumes 
ib also a Scotchman. 

In justice to his Lordship (although without 
his consent, approbation, or knowledge) I here- 
by declare, that he did not know who were the 
bail for Mr Eyre, nor did any of them ever make 
any prior application to his Lordship, nor were 
they personally acquainted with him, though 'tis 
probable his Lordship might have seen them on 
juries. I also declare, that Mr Eyre is not a 
Scotchman, but an Englishman ; and from what 
I can guess of Junius, he is worse than either, 
viz. an Irishman, a liar, and a Jesuit. 

None of the three gentlemen who bailed Mr 
Eyre ever saw him till the morning they went to 
lord Mansfield's at Cane Wood to bail him. 
This they did purely to oblige an intimate friend 



Junius, equally pert, false, and stupid. 
Ex his disce omnia. 

I know nothing of Junius, but I see 
plainly that he has designedly spared lord 
Holland and his family. Whether lord 
Holland be invulnerable, or whetherJUNiUS 
should be wantonly provoked, are questions 
worthy the Black Boy s consideration. 

ANTI-FOX. 



LETTER CL 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 5 November, 1771. 

Junius, I see, has got my lord 
Mansfield upon the hip, and fairly driven 
the Scotch out of their discretion, and 
almost out of their senses. The change in 
the apparent position of their cheek-bones 
is very remarkable. The complacent, in- 
sidious smile, has universally given way to 
a ghastly grin of rancour and despair. 
Your correspondents A tit i-J tin iu s ?ind. One 
of the Bail actually foam at the mouth. 1 



who was connected with him by marriage, with- 
out any other motive whatsoever. 

Whether the noble lord, whose very great 
abilities have brought upon him, though unjustly, 
the envy and malice of such assassins as Junius, 
was right or wrong I leave to the learned in the 
law to defend, and have no doubt his Lordship 
has acted in this matter according to his usual 
ability in law affairs, and rather with a view to 
enlarge than contract the liberty of the subject. 
At the same time, Mr Printer, I should wish to 
be certain who this Mr Junius is who stabs all 
good characters in the dark. My reason is, I 
should be glad of an opportunity of using such a 
lying, infamous, cowardly scoundrel as he ought 
to be : for which purpose (if he chooses it), I 
have left my name with the printer. 

One of the three who bailed Mr Eyre. 



TO JUNIUS. 

4 Nov. 1771. 
You seem to delight most in traducing 
the most exalted and most respectable cha- 
racters. 

Y^otc say, lord Mansfield bailed Mr Eyre at 
the hitercessio7i of three of his countrymen. 

/ say, that is false : and that what he did was 
his duty to do as lord chief justice of England, 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF J 



UNIUS. 



493 



But calling liar and scoundrel is no answer 
to Junius. He did not assert that the thief 
was a Scotchman ; ^ he only presumed it, 
from the circumstance of his being bailed 
by three of that country. It appears now 
that the thief was closely cormccied with 
Scotland. The.se sweet-blooded children, 
even when they bail an Englishman, ad- 
here to their principles. If the devil him- 
self, connected as he is with an ancient 
nation, were taken up for felony, I do not 
doubt that all Scotland, to a mon, would 
readily be his security. 

Junius did not blame the bailiox inter- 
esting themselves in favuur of their friend, 
countryman, or associate. Yet he might 
liave done it with propriety. The thief was 
not charged on suspicion, but taken in the 
fact. He was, ipso facto, a felon, and to 
bail him required all the natural benevo- 
lence of Scotland. Either he had no Eng- 
lish friends, or they were ashamed to ac- 
knowledge any connexion with him. 

Instead of meeting Junius upon the 
strict question of law, these loons wander 
into circumstances of no moment, or defend 
lord Mansfield by apocryphal assertions, 
which, if true, would be nothing to the 
purpose. One says that he has surrendered 



and perfectly agreeable to law and to constant 
practice. 

You say, that you presume Mr Eyre is a 
Scotchman. 

I say, the culprit is an English^nan. 

Yoic say, his bail were all Scotchmen. 

I say, they were. And how did that happen ? 
Because a Scotchman is, by marriage, unhappily 
allied to him : and why should it be deemed 
a reproach that they joined in doing a good- 
natured office at the request of a countryman ? 
Or that they contributed to alleviate the distress 
of an innocent woman, who, though unfortunately 
connected with the criminal, had not a participa- 
tion in his guilt? Dost not thou know, thou 
slanderer, that the offence, though felony by 
law, was of the slightest kind? And would'st 
thou not, had that able and amiable judge 
I whose name will be an everlasting honour to 
this country) refused to admit JNIr Eyre to bail, 
have traduced his Lordship for that very refusal, 
and charged him with executing the law with 
wanton rigour, because he was an E7iglish}nan. 

Mr Eyre has been brought to trial, and has i 
pleaded guilty. / say, nevertheless, that the 
offence, by the laws of England, ts bailal)le ; and 
I pledge myself, before God and my country, to 



and taken his trial, the other that no inter- 
cession was made with lord Mansfield : — 
one says that the felony (for which the 
culprit is unluckily transported) was of the 
slightest kind ; — the other says that Eyre 
is an Enghshman. Now the plain matter 
of fact is this. A thief, taken in the fact, 
is refused bail by the lord mayor of Lon- 
don. Three Scotchmen take the said thief 
or felon before another — Scotchman, who 
bails the said felon. The single question 
arising from the fact, is, was he, or was he 
7iot, bailable by law ? For my own part, 
until I hear good reasons to the contrary, I 
shall abide by Junius, because I am per- 
suaded he would not hazard his credit so 
unnecessarily, if he were not very sure of 
his law. 

A. B. 



LETTER Cn.2 



TO his royal highness the duke of 

CUMBERLAND. 

Sir, 13 November, '^-771. 

I BEG 3'-our Royal Highness's ac- 
ceptance of my sincere compliments of 
congratulation upon your auspicious union 
with the daughter of lord Irnham.^ and 



prove, that lord chief justice Mansfield acted in 
this matter agreeable to law, and that Junius 
has shown himself in this, and many other in- 
stances, 3. ptibtic- incendiary, and a liar. 

Anti-juxius. — Edit. 

■^ His words are, ' at the intercession of three 
of your couiitrymen, you have bailed a man, who, 
/ prestime, is also a Scotchman.' See Letter 
LXV. 

- Of this letter Junius writes, * Cumbriensis 
has taken greatly.' Private Letter, No. 43. — 
Edit. 

^ The marriage of the late duke of Cumber- 
land was first announced to the readers of the 
Public Advertiser in the following communica- 
tion, obviously from the pen of Junius. 

INTELLIGENCE EXTRAORDINARY, 
THOUGH TRUE. 
We can assure the public that his Royal 
Highness the duke of Cumberland is happily 
married to Mrs Horton, sister of lieutenant- 
colonel Luttrell, the worthy nominee of Middle- 
sex. The new-married pair are now celebrating 
their nuptials in France, where the duchess of 
Cumberland receives all the honours due to her 
high rank, and new relation to the House of 



494 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



the sister of colonel Luttrell. For the pre- 
sent you will have so few of these compli- 
ments paid you, that mine perhaps may be 
thought worthy your attention. I do assure 
your Royal Highness, with great sincerity, 
that, when I consider the various excellen- 
cies which adorn or constitute your personal 
character, — your natural parts,— your affa- 
ble, benevolent, generous temper,— your 
good sense, so singularly improved by ex- 
perience ;— and, above all the rest, the un- 
common education winch your venerable 
mother took care to give you, — I do not 
think it possible to have found a more 
suitable match for you, than that which you 
have so discreetly provided for yourself. 
What you have done, will, I am sure, be no 
disgrace to yourself, or to any of your 
reladons. Yet I must confess, partial as 
I am to you for the sake of that good 
prince, of whose resemblance you carry 
some cutting traces about you, I could 
wish you did not stand quite so near as 
you do to the regency and crown of 
England. — God forbid I should ever hear 
your royal nephews say, as Edward the 
Fifth does in the play, But why to the 
Tower, uncle ! — Or why should you lock us 
up, aunt/— I mean their uncle Luttrell and 
aunt Horton. 

But, my good youth, let no considerations 
of this sort interrupt your pleasures. Your 
amiable spouse is as much duchess of Cum- 
berland as our gracious Queen is queen of 
Great Britain; and of course she is the 
second woman in the kingdom. Your papa 
Irnham must at least take rank of lord 
Mansfield ; — your brother Henry of the 
princes of Mecklenburg, and your sister 
Miss Luttrell of Madam Swellenburgh. 
As to the king's not acknowledging the 
duchess, or forbidding her the court, it 
signifies nothing. Her marriage is good in 
law, and her children will be legitimate. 

Brunswick. — This match, we are informed, was 
negotiated by a certain duke and his cream- 
coloured parasite, by way of reward to colonel 
Luttrell. It is now, happily for this country, 
within the limits of possibility, that a Luttrell 
may be king of Great Britain. There was no 
court yesterday. 



She may order plays, keep a court of her 
own, and set the Princess Dowager at de- 
fiance. But you need have no fear of being 
ill used. Your brother Harry has a dagger 
at the throat of a certain person, and swears 
he will let the cat out of the bag about the 
Middlesex election. So far from offending 
Harry, I should not wonder to see him aide 
de camp to the king, and, in a little time, 
commander-in-chief. 

Whenever you want a divorce, you need 
only leave your spouse alone for an hour or 
two with * * * ******. When 
he performed the office of father to Poll 
Davis, and gave her to his infatuated friend, 
he contrived to send the young man upon 
a fool's errand, and that very night con- 
summated with her himself. You, I know. 
Sir, will never go upon a fool's errand, and 
I suppose it may be equally certain that 
your papa, if he had an opportunity, would 
not ****** ** ****. 

CUMBRIENSIS.i 



LETTER CHI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 19 November, 1771. 

I HAVE great faith in Junius, and 
wish the friends of the cause would leave 
lord Mansfield entirely to his care.^ It is 
not fair to anticipate his arguments, or to 
run down the game which he has started. 
Junius, I dare say, has it as much at heart 
to sacrifice Mansfield, with his own pen, as 
Achilles had to prevent any other of the 
Grecian army from killing Hector. The 
passage I allude to is one of the finest in 
the Ihad. 

* Aaotcriv S' aveVeue KapTjari 6tcs 'Ax"^'^-*^^^? 
OuS' eta e/xevat ettI 'E/cTopt Trt/cpa fieXefjiva' 
M^Tts /cv6os apoiTO /SaAwv, 6 Se Sevrepo^ e'A^ot.' 
22 B. line 205. 

Divine Achilles, lest some Greek's advance 
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance. 



^ This letter is acknowledged by Junius in his 
private correspondence, No. 43. — Edit. 

^ A great number of letters appeared in support 
of the doctrine maintained by Junius on the 
subject of the bailment of Eyre- — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



49S 



Signed to the troops, to yield \\\'ifoe the way, 
And leave untouched the honours of the day. 
Pope. 
Yours, 

ANTI- BELIAL. 



LETTER CIV. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 4 Deccmbe?-, 1771. 

Your ingenious correspondent, 
Anti-Juiiiu:;, has too mucli wit and taste 
to be easily satisfied. It is really a mis- 
fortune to be born with such exquisitely 
fine feelings. If, now that he is well fed 
and clothed, he cannot endure the severity 
of a southern breeze, what would become 
of him upon his native mountains? Junius 
can never write to please him. — -If he re- 
ceives the least mention of past enormities, 
what is it but ' cold scraps, baked meats, 
political Jiddli?7g, and the voice of the 
charmer!' hash'd tnutton, and Dutch mu- 
sic w'ith a vengeance ! — If, on the contrary, 
he lays any new villanies before the public, 
then, one and all, the hungry pack open 
upon him at once : — ' Here's invention for 
you I—What an abominable liar! — Why 



' The following are the passages in Anti- 
j/'uni7is's a.n?,\ver to Letter LXVII., to which a 
repl^r IS more particularly given in the above. 

' Had Junius a single friend in the world 
whom he dared trust or consult, his performance 
of yesterday, so unlnstructive to your readers, so 
fatal to his reputation, vvould surely have never 
found its way to the press. His invective has 
neither novelty nor variety to recommend it ; the 
public palate must nauseate at the insipidit}' of 
his repeated abuse, and loath the repast which 
his miserable thrift has attempted to furnish forth 
from the cold scraps and baked meats of his 
former scurrilous entertainments. In vain does 
this political liddler labour for the public attention, 
by thrumming the worn-out strings of Middlesex 
election, Whutlebury timber, Hine's patent, and 
the long-forgotten rule made absolute against Mr 
Vaughan. The voice of the charmer himself can 
no longer charm with these sounds ; these chords 
so repeatedly struck fall flat, even upon the ear 
of envy itself.' 

_'\yith the recriminating malice of antiquated 
virginity, he endeavours to sully the daughter's 
innocence with the father's crimes, suppressing a 
well-known circumstance, viz. that all intercourse 



does not he stick to his facts f Does he 
think us such idiots as to swallow wit for 
truth ?' In short, Sir, the Scotch have 
strange, qualmish stomachs ; — it is not in 
the art of cookery to please them. Nothing 
will go down but oatmeal and brimstone. 

Anti-Junius is not so explicit as I could 
wish. I. What intercourse was that be- 
tween lord Irnham and his daughter, which 
he says has been so long interrupted f I 
mean no offence to the lady, but really the 
word ijitercotirse is a little equivocal. — 
2. What was that purpose, for which sir 
James Lowther's grant was obtained, and 
which, Anti-Junius says, has been long 
since defeated ?— 3- Who does he mean by 
a 7nan ever burthensome to every adjninis- 
tration f I hope he does not mean the 
duke of Grafton's friend sir James Low- 
ther, or at least that he does not give the 
baronet this pretty character by order of 
the duke of Grafton. 

After all, I really think that Junius, call- 
ed upon as he is by so able an antagonist, 
cannot do less than discover himself. He 
must be woefully given to suspicion, if he 
has the least doutit of the tender mercy of 
the Scotch, or of the forgiving piety of St 
James's. 

JUNIPER. 1 



between that father and that daughter has long 
been interrupted.' 

* * * * * 

' Sir James Lowther's nonsuit is in the eye of 
the heaven-reading Junius another visible opera- 
tion of retribution : — not on the kiag indeed ; he 
does not seem to be affected by it. any farther 
than as it has introduced the parenthesis of the 
Luttrell alliance — but on the poor duke of Graf- 
ton, whose days are anxious, and whose nights 
are sleepless, because a grant, obtained to serve 
a purpose long since defeated, and to gratify the 
importunities of a man ever burthensome to every 
administration, is adjudged invalid ; for this the 
duke of Grafton wears the dismal countenance of 
solitary sorrow ; for this does he fruitlessly look 
round for consolations ; for this does Mr Brad- 
shaw shed the April showers of lambent lament- 
ation. Surely Junius thinks to mislead reason 
and annihilate common-sense, by the use of a 
few ridiculous, half-meaning epithets.' 

* If you are really the honest state-gardener 
you would be thought, and not the malicious, 
discontented impostor I think you, away with 
your shuffling, well-worded delays ; the noisome 



496 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER CV. 

TO LORD BARRINGTON. 

My Lord, 28 Janiiary, 1772. 

It is unlucky for the army that 
you should be so thoroughly convinced as 
you are how extremely low you stand in 
their opinion. The consciousness that you 
are despised and detested by every indi- 
vidual in it, from the drummer (whose dis- 
cipline nlight be of service to you) to the 
general officer, makes you desperate about 
your conduct and character. You think 
that you are arrived at a state of security, 
and that, being plunged to the very heels 
in infamy, the dipping has made you in- 
vulnerable. There is no other way to ac- 
count for your late frantic resolution of 
appointing Tony Shammy your deputy- 
secretary at war. — Yet I am far from mean- 
ing to impeach his character as a broker. 
In that line he was qualified to get forward 
by his industry, birth, education, and ac- 
complishments. I make no sort of doubt 
of his cutting a mighty pretty figure at 
Jonathan's. To this hour among bulls 
and bears his name is mentioned with re- 
spect. Every Israelite in the alley is in 
raptures. What, our old friend, little 
Shammy ! — Ay, he zvas always a tight, 
active little felloro, and would wrangle for 
an eighth as if he had been born in Jeru- 
salem. Who d ha thought it I Well, we 
may notu look out for the rebuilding of the 
temple. — My Lord, if I remember right, 
you are partial to the spawn of Jonathan's. 
Witness the care, you took to provide for 
Mr Delafontaine in the military depart- 
ment. He limped a httle when he left the 
alley,! but your Lordship soon set him upon 
his legs again. — This last resolution how- 
ever approaches to madness. Your cream- 
coloured Mercury 2 has over-reached both 

plant that has brought forth such bitter fruit, is 
surely now ripe enough to be plucked.' — Edit. 

^ The transactions here referred to in respect 
to Delafontaine and Chamier, or Shammy as he 
was called in the alley, are more particularly 
noticed in the Private Letters, Nos. 52 and 56. 



you and himself; and remember what I 
seriously tell you, this measure will, sooner 
or later, be the cause, not of your disgrace 
(that affair's settled), but of your ruin. 
What daemon possessed you to place a 
little gambling broker at the head of the 
war-office, and in a post of so much rank 
and confidence, as that of deputy to the 
secretary at war ? — (I speak of your office, 
not of your person.)— -Do you think that 
his having been useful.in certain practices 
to lord Sandwich gives any great relief to 
his character, or raises him in point of 
rank? My Lord, the rest of the world 
laugh at your choice ; but we soldiers feel 
it as an indignity to the whole army, and 
be assured we shall resent it accordingly. 
— Not that I think you pay much regard to 
the sensations of any thing under the de- 
gree of a general officer, and even that 
rank you have publicly stigmatized in the 
most opprobrious terms. Yet still some of 
them, though in your wise opinion not 
qualified to command, are entitled to re- 
spect. Let us suppose a case, which every 
man acquainted with the war-office will ad- 
mit to be very probable. Suppose a lieu- 
tenant-general, who perhaps may be a peer, 
or a member of the House of Commons, 
does you the honour to wait upon you for 
instructions relative to his regiment. After 
explaining yourself to him with your usual 
accuracy and decision, you naturally refer 
him to your deputy for the detail of the 
business. My dear genera^ Fm prodi- 
giously hurried. — But do me the favotir to 
go to Mr Shammy ; — go to little Waddle- 
well ; — go to my duckling ; — go to little 
three per cents reduced ;^you II fnd him a 
mere scrip of a secretary ; an omnium 
of all that's genteel ; — the activity of a 
broker ; — the politeness of a hair-dresser ; — 

the the the, b'c. 

Our general officer we may presume 
being curious to see this wonderful Gir- 



Chamier was successor in the war-office to Mr 
D'Oyly, who was discarded to make room for 
him. — Edit. 

^ T. Bradshaw, whose absurd elevation has 
been already noticed, and will occasionally be 
found observed upon again. — Edit. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



497 



gashite, the following dialogue passes be- 
tween them. 

Lieut.-Gen. Sir, the secretary at war re- 
fers me to you for an account of what was 
done — 

Waddlewell. Done, Sir ! — Closed at 
three-eighths ! — Looked flat I must own ; 
— but to-morrow, my dear Sir, I hope to 
see a more lively appearance, 

Lieut. -Geft. Sir, I speak of the non- 
effective fund. 

Waddlewell. Fund, my dear Sir ! In 
what fund would you wish to be concerned ? 
— Speak freely — You may confide in your 
humble servant ; — I'm all discretion. 

Lieut.-Gen. Sir, I really don't under- 
stand you. Lord Barrington says that my 
regiment may possibly be thought of for 

India 

Waddlewell. India, my dear Sir ! — 
strange fluctuation :— from fourteen and an 
half to twenty-two, never stood a moment : 
—but ended cheerful ;— no mortal can ac- 
count for it. 
Lieut. -Ge?t. — Damn your stocks. Sir, tell 

me whether the commission 

Waddlewell. As for commission, my 
dear Sir, I'll venture to say that no gentle- 
man in the alley does business upon easier 
terms. I never take less than an eighth, 
except from lord Sandwich and my brother- 
in-law, but they deal largely, and you must 
be sensible, my dear Sir, that when the 
commission is extensive, it may be worth a 
broker's while to content himself with a 
sixteenth. 

The general officer, at last, fatigued with 
such extravagance, quits the room in dis- 
gust, and leaves the intoxicated broker to 
settle his accounts by himself. 

After such a scene as this, do you think 
that any man of rank or consequence in the 
army will ever apply to you or your deputy 
again?— Will any officer of rank conde- 
scend to receive orders from a little, whif- 
fling broker, to whom he may formerly 
perhaps have given half-a-crown for nego- 

^ This letter is more particularly designed as a 
reply to a very long and elaborate one published 
the preceding day in the Public Advertiser, and 



tiating an hundred pound stock, or sixpence 
for a lottery ticket.— My Lord, without a 
jest, it is indecent, it is odious, it is pre- 
posterous. — Our gracious master, it is said, 
reads the newspapers. If he does, he shall 
know minutely in what manner you treat 
his faithful army. This is the first of six- 
teen letters addressed to your Lordship, 
which are ready for the press, and shall 
appear as fast as it suits the printer's con- 
venience. 

VETERAN. 



LETTER CVI. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 6 Feb. 1772. 

There is one general, easy way 
of answering Junius, which his opponents 
have constantly had recourse to since he 
first began to write, or tkey to answer him. 
They either misquote his words and mis- 
state his propositions, or they laboriously 
employ themselves in refuting doctrines 
which he has not maintained, or maintain- 
ing others which he has not disputed, i— 
This has been particularly their practice in 
all the argument about the bailment of 
Eyre. 

1°. Junius has never affirmed that the 
judges of the Court of King's Bench were 
named or specially comprehended in the 
statute of Westminster, or any other of the 
old statutes preceding the Habeas Corpus 
Act. The design of those quotations was to 
prove the meaning and intention of the 
legislature with respect to the right of bail- 
ing a person under the circumstances of Mr 
Eyre. This meaning and intention once 
clearly proved, he affirms, is the direction 
and land-mark to the judge in the exercise 
of that discretionary power which the law 
has left with him. 

2°. Junius has not denied that the 
judges of the Court of King's Bench have 
a discretionary power to bail in all cases, 



addressed, Justinius to Junius. It is certainly 
well written, but unquestionably labours under 
the defects here complained of. — Edit. 
32 



498 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



according to the circumstances of the cases. 
But does it follow that they may legally 
bail when no circumstances whatsoever are 
alleged on one side to alleviate the force of 
the positive charge of felony made on the 
other ? — If it does, their power of baihng is 
arbitrary., not discretionary. — Discretion 
implies consideration ; but if no allegations 
whatsoever be made in behalf of the pri- 
soner, they have then nothing to consider. 
The warrant of commitment expresses a 
positive charge of felony. If nothing be 
alleged in behalf of the prisoner, the judge 
has then no subject, whereupon to exercise 
his discretion. He has no choice. He must 
remand the prisoner. 

3°. Junius does not insist upon the case 
of Eyre so much on the score of its own 
enormity, as because it establishes a dan- 
gerous doctrine, applicable to all crimes 
however indisputably proved, and gives the 
judges an arbitrary power which the laws 
never meant to give them. As to lord 
Mansfield, it is probable that Junius would 
not have attacked him in the manner he 
has done, if this had been the only instance 
of his misconduct. In truth, it is one out of 
a multitude. 

I beg leave to conclude with asking this 
wicked judge two plain questions : — i°. Is 
there or is there not any difference between 
offences bailable and offences ?wt bailable ; 
and if there be, what is it ? — 2°. When the 
legislature, in the Habeas Corpus Act, do, 
specially and by name, forbid the judges of 
the Court of King's Bench to proceed to 
the bailment of the prisoner, if it shall 
appear to them that he is committed for 
such matters or offences, yor the which by 
the law the prisoner is not bailable, have 
they any meaning, or have they none at 
all? Let it be remembered that Junius 
never pretends to be a better lawyer than 
lord Mansfield. On the contrary, he takes 
every opportunity to acknowledge the su- 
perior learning and abilities of that wicked 
judge ; and in the present instance particu- 
larly insists, not that he was ignorant of the 



law, but that he sinned against his own 
certain knowledge and conviction. 

ANTI-BELIAL. 



LETTER CVII. 



' General Fowke, who was then stationed at 
Gibraltar, received instructions in several letters 



TO LORD BARKINGTON. 

NUMBER II. 

My Lord, 17 February, 1772. 

In my last letter I only meant to 
be jocular. An essay so replete with good 
humour could not possibly give offence. 
You are no enemy to a jest, or at least you 
would be thought callous to reproach. 
You profess a most stoical indifference 
about the opinion of the world, and, above 
all things, make it your boast that you can 
set the newspapers at defiance. No man 
indeed has received a greater share of cor- 
rection in this way, or profited less by it, 
than your Lordship. But we know you 
better. You have one defect less than you 
pretend to. You are not insensible of the 
scorn and hatred of the world, though you 
take no care to avoid it. — When the bloody 
Barrington, that silken, fawning courtier at 
St James's, — that stern and insolent min- 
ister at the war-offi«ce, is pointed out to 
universal contempt and detestation, you 
smile, indeed, but the last agonies of -the 
hysteric passion are painted in your counte- 
nance. Your cheek betrays what passes 
within you, and your whole frame is in con- 
vulsions. — I now mean to be serious with 
you, but not to waste my time in proving 
that you are an enemy to the laws and 
liberties of this country. The very name of 
Barrington implies every thing that is 
mean, cruel, false, and contemptible. The 
duke of Newcastle's livery was the first 
habit you put on. — What an indefatigable 
courtier at his levee ! — What an assiduous 
parasite at his table ! — Was there a dirty 
job to be performed, — away went Barring- 
ton. — Was a message to be carried, — Who 
waits there f — My lord Barrington. After 
ruining that brave and worthy man general 
Fowke 1 under the ausprces of the duke of 



from lord Barrington, shortly after his appoint- 
ment to be secretary at war in 1760, under the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



499 



Newcastle, who saved you from destruc- 
tion, you deserted to Mr Pitt the moment 
he came into power. Before the late king's 
death you secured a footing at Carlton 
House ; and were prepared to abandon 
your last patron, the moment lord Bute 
assumed the reins of government.— From 
lord Bute to Mr Grenville there was an 
easy transfer of your affections. You are 
the' common friend of all ministers, but it 
is not in your pohcy to engage in overt acts 
of hostihty against those, who may perhaps 
be next in turn to patronize lord Harrington. 
My dear Lord, or viy dear Sir, are titles 
with which you have occasionally addressed 
every man who ever had an office, or the 
chance of an office, in this kingdom. Even 
the proscribed John Wilkes, the moment he 
was sheriff, had a claim upon your pohte- 
ness. Your character was a little battered 
by the frequency of your political amours, 
when lord Rockingham took you into 
keeping.— While you existed by his protec- 
tion, you intrigued with the duke of Graf- 
ton. — Another change succeeded. — Your 
mind ^vas open to new lights, and, without 
a doubt, lord Chatham was the only vian in 
the kingdom Jit to govern a great empire.— 
Still however your opinions of men and 
things were not perfectly settled. When 
the duke of Grafton took the lead, the 
pliant Barrington of course saw things in a 
different point of view. There is nothing 
in your attachments that savour of obsti- 
nacy.— When his Grace resigned, you 
soon discovered that to establish govern- 
ment upon a sohd footing, the minister's 
presence was indispensable in the House of 
Commons.— Lord North was then the man 
after your Lordship's own hesiXi.— In yotir 
ideas, the first lord of the Treasury for 
the time being is always perfect -.—but every 
change is for the better.— W'x'Cn. all your 
professions of attachment to this temporary 
minister. I tell him, and I tell the pubHc, 
that at this very hour you are caballing 

duke of Newcastle's administration, which pro- 
duced measures that had nearly effected the loss 
of that important post. Lord Barrington, on 
perceiving the blunder he had commiltted, most 



with the duke of Grafton and the Bedfords 
to obtain the recall of lord Townshend, and 
to, drive lord North from the Treasury. — 
But they all know you. — In the inventory of 
the discarded minister's effects, lord Bar- 
rington is always set down as a fix- 
ture. 

By garbling and new-modelling the war- 
office, you think you have reduced the army 
to subjection. — Walk in, gentlemen ! Bu- 
siness done by Chamier and Co. — To make 
your office complete, you want nothing 
now, but a paper-lanthorn at the door, and 
the scheme of a lottery pasted upon the 
window. — With all your folly and obstin- 
acy, I am at a loss to conceive what coun- 
tenance you assumed, when you told your 
royal master, that you had taken a little 
Frenchified broker from 'Change Alley, to 
intrust with the management of all the 
affairs of his army. — Did the following 
dialogue leave no impression upon your 
disordered imagination ? You know where 
it passed. 

K. — Pray, my Lord, whom have you ap- 
pointed to succeed Mr D'Oyly? 

B. — Please your M , I believe I have 

made a choice, that will be highly accept- 
able to the public and to the army. 

/r.— Who is it ? 

B. — Sire, it s'appelle Ragosin. Born and 
educated in 'Change Alley, he glories in the 
name of broker ; and, to say nothing of 
lord Sandwich's friendship, I can assure 

your M , he has always kept the best 

company at Jonathan's. 

K. — My Lord, I never interfere in these 
matters. But I cannot help telling your 
Lordship, that you might have consulted 
my honour and the credit of my army a 
little better. Your appointment of so mean 
a person, though he may be a very honest 
man in the mystery he was bred to, casts a 
reflection upon me, and is an insult to the 
army. At all events, I desire it may be 
understood that I have no concern in this 



ungenerously prevailed on general Fowke to take 
the chief blame upon himself, under a promise 
of indemnification. The result was that Fowke 
was ruined, and Barrington liberated. — Edit. 



500 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



ill-judged, indecent measure, and that I do 
not approve of it. 

I suppose, my Lord, you thought this 
conversation might be sunk upon the pub- 
lic. It does honour to his Majesty, and 
therefore you concealed it. — In my next I 
propose to show what a faithful friend you 
have been to the army, particularly to old 
worn-out officers. 

VETERAN. 



LETTER CVIII. 

TO LORD BARRINGTON. 

NUMBER III. 

My Lord, 27 February, 1772. 

The army now, according to your 
own account of the matter, is under a very 
creditable sort of direction. If we may 
rely upon the secretary at war's opinion, 
solemnly and deliberately expressed before 
the House of Commons, there is not a 
single man in the profession, who is in any 
shape quahfied for commander-in-chief; at 
least none, whom you would think it safe to 
recommend to his Majesty. If your judg- 
ment- upon this subject had been better 
founded than it is, I do not understand that 
a secretary at war has any right to pass so 
disgraceful and precipitate a sentence upon 
so many of his superiors. Believe me, my 
good Lord, there is not one of those officers, 
whom you dared to stigmatize in that in- 
famous manner, who is not qualified to be 
your master in the art military, notwith- 
standing all the experience you got in St 
George's Fields, when you urged and ex- 
horted the guards to imbrue their hands in 
the blood of their fellow-subjects. — While 
that bloody scene was acting, where was the 
gentle Barrington ? — Was he sighing at the 
feet of antiquated beauty ? — -Was he dream- 
ing over the loo-table, or was lie more 
innocently employed in combing her lady- 
ship's lap-dog ? — But, my Lord, when you 
paid that pretty compliment to the body of 
general officers, had you no particular 
apologies to make to general Conway, to 
lord Albemarle, or to sir Jeffery Amherst ? 



— Did general Harvey deserve nothing 
better of you, than a ridiculous nickname, 
which, like lord Mansfield's secret, he must 
carry with him to his grave ? — In heu of a 
commander-in-chief, you have advised the 
king to put the army into commission. — 
A graduate i7i physic, an old woman, a?id 
a broker from ' Chattge Alley. — The doctor 
prescribes, — the old gentlewoman adminis- 
ters, — and little Syringe, the apothecary, 
stands by the glisterpipe. — This, you tell 
the king, is making himself commander-in- 
chief, and the surest way to preserve th,e 
affections of the army. — It may be so, my 
lord, but I see no right you had to give the 
nickname of doctor Radcliffe to so brave a 
man as general Harvey. Though his 
natural sweetness of temper may induce 
him to pass it by, it must always be morti- 
fying to a brave adjutant-general, when he 
marches into St James's coffee-house, to 
hear the ensigns of the guards v.'hisper to 
one another — here comes the doctor; — or 
when he marches out, there goes the doctor. 
— I dare say, he has furnished work enough 
for the surgeons ; but, until you so politely 
pointed it out, I cannot say I ever saw any 
thing medical in his appearance. 

After treating the most powerful people 
in the army with so much unprovoked in- 
solence, it is not to be supposed that field- 
officers, captains, and subalterns have any 
chance of common justice at your hands. 
But that matter shall be the subject of 
another letter, and every letter shall be 
concluded with a conversation piece. The 
following dialogue is not imaginary. 

SCENE. — WAR-OFFICE. 

Enter Barrington, meeting Waddlewell. 

B. — My dear friend, you look charm- 
ingly this morning. 

W. — My dearest Lord — the sight of your 
Lordship ! — Here they embrace. Waddle- 
well's thoughts being too big for utterance. 

B. — When did you see my Pylades, our 
dear Bradshaw f 

IV. — Ay, my Lord — there is a friend 
indeed. — Firmness without resistance, — 
sincerity without contradiction, — and the 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



50T 



milky way painted in his countenance.— If 
I could ever reconcile my mind to the dis- 
tracting prospect of losing your Lordship, 
where else should we look for a successor ! 
But that event, I hope is at a great dis- 
tance. Late, very late, Oh may he rule zis ! 

B. — Ay, my dearest Waddlewell, but we 
are sadly abused, notwithstanding all our 
virtues. 

W. — Merit, my dear Lord, merit will for 
ever excite enmity. — I found it so in the 
alley. I never made a lucky hit in my life, 
that it did not set all Jonathan's in an up- 
roar. If an idea succeeded, my best friends 
turned against me, Judas and Levi, Moses 
and Issachar.— People with whom I have 
been connected by the tenderest ties,— 
could not endure the sight of my prosperity. 
The ten tribes of Israel united to destroy 
me, and for two years together were ma- 
licious enough to call me the lucky little 
Benjaviin. Friendship, among the best of 
men, is httle better than a name. 

B. — Why, my dear deputy, it is not that 
I regard the contempt and hatred of all 
mankind. — I never knew it otherwise. No 
man's patience has been better exercised. 
But what if the king should hear of it ! — 

I^.— Ay, there's the rub ! 

B. — If the best of princes, who pretends 
to be his own commander-in-chief, should 
hear that the name of Barrington is oppro- 
brious in the army ;— that even he himself 
is not spared for supporting me — 

W. — Weeping. — Oh fatal day ! — Com- 
pared with this, what is a riscounter !— 
Alas, my dearest Lord, you have unmanned 
your deputy. — I feel myself already at ten 
per cent, discount, and never shall be at 
par again. 

B. —Something must be done.— Let us 
consider. — 

W. — Ay, my dear Lord, for heaven's 
sake, let us speculate. 

Exeunt disputiiig ahoiit precedence. 
VETERAN. 



^ The name subscribed by a writer who under- 
took the defence of lord Barrington : and whom 
our author, according to his usual custom, here 
identihes with the noble earl. — Edit. 



LETTER CIX. 



TO LORD BARRINGTON, 



NUMBER IV. 

My Lord, 10 March, T772. 

I AM at a loss for words to express my 
acknowledgment of the signal honour you 
have done me. One of the principal pur- 
poses of these addresses, was to engage 
you in a regular public correspondence. 
You very justly thought it unnecessary to 
sign your name to this last, elegant per- 
formance. Novalis 1 answers as well as 
Barrington. We know you by your style. 
This is not the first of your epistles, that 
has been submitted to the criticism of the 
public. While yet, like poor Waddlewell, 
you were young in office, your letters to 
General Fowke were considered as the 
standard of perspicuity. 2 You are now 
very old in office, and continue to write 
exactly as you did in your infancy. I do 
not wonder that the extremes of your 
capacity should meet in the same point, 
but I should be glad to know at what 
period you reckoned yourself in the prime 
and vigour of your official understanding. — 
Was it when you signified to the third regi- 
ment of guards his Majesty's gratitude and 
your own, for their alacrity in butchering 
their innocent fellow-subjects in St George's 
Fields? 3 — Was it when you informed the 
House of Commons, that you and the 
doctor were equivalent to a commander-in- 
cliief ? — Or when you declared that there 
was not a man in the army fit to be trusted 
with the command of it ?— Or wlien you 
estabhshed that wise and humane regula- 
tion, that no officer, let his age and infirmi- 
ties be ever so great, and his services ever 
so distinguished, should be suffered to sell 
out, unless he had bought all his former 
commissions ? — Or in short was it when you 
dived into Jonathan's for a deputy, and 

^ See note to Miscellaneous Letter, No.CVII., 
p. 498. — Edit. 

3 See note to Miscellaneous Letter, No. 
XXI v., p. 380, in which the letter here alluded 
to is inserted. — Edit. 



502 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



plucked up Waddlcwell by the locks? 
When you answer these questions, I shall 
be ready to meet your Lordship upon that 
ground, on which you think you stand the 
firmest. In the mean time, give me leave 
to say a few words to Novalis. 

You are pleased to obsen^e that my 
three first letters are filled with low scur- 
rility upon hackneyed topics collected from 
the newspapers. Have a httle patience, 
my dear Lord ; — I shall soon come to 
closer quarters with you. As for those 
dialogues, which you are pleased to say 
have neither wit nor humour in them, I can 
only observe that there are many scenes, 
which pass off tolerably well upon the stage, 
and yet will not bear the examination of 
the closet. You and Waddlewell are ex- 
cellent performers. Between a courtier and 
a broker words are the smallest part of the 
conversation. Shrugs and smiles, bows 
and grimaces, the condescension of St 
James's, and the phant politeness of 'Change 
Alley, stand in the place of repartee, and 
fill up the scene. 

You intimate, without daring directly 
to assert, that you did not fix that odious 
stigma upon the body of general officers. 
Have you forgot the time when you- at- 
tempted the same evasion in the House of 
Commons, and forced general Howard to 
rise and say he was ashamed of you? — 
These mean, dirty, pitiful tricks, are fitter 
for Jonathan's than the war-office. 

You have more experience than any of 
your clerks, and your great abilities are 
acknowledged on all sides. As for your 
experience, we all know how much your 
conduct has been improved by it. But pray 
who informed you of this universal ac- 
kjiowledgment of your abilities ? The syco- 
phants, whose company you delight in, are 
likely enough to fill you with these flattenng 
ideas. But if you were wise enough to 
consult the good opinion of the world, you 
would not be so eager to establish the 
credit of your understanding. The moment 
you arrive at the character of a man of 
sense you are undone. You must then 
relinquish the only tolerable excuse that 



can be made for your conduct. — It is really 
unkind of you to distress the few friends you 
have left. 

To your Lordship's zeal to discover and 
patronize latent merit, the public is in- 
debted for the services of Mr Bradshaw^— 
Pray, my Lord, will you be so good as to 
explain -to us, of what nature were those 
services, which he first rendered to your 
Lordship ? — Was he winged like a mes- 
senger, or stationary like a sentinel ? 

' Like Maia's son he stood 

And shook his plumes ; ' 

videlicet, at the door of lady n's 

cabinet. — His zeal in the execution of this 
honourable office promoted him to another 
door, where he also stands sentry. 

' Vii-gaque levem coercet 

AiireiX turbam.' 

That he has ably served the state, may be 
collected from the public acknowledgments 
the ministry have made him. Fifteen hun- 
dred pounds a year, well secured to himself 
and his family, will acquit the king of any 
ingratitude to Mr Bradshaw. It is by mere 
accident that Sir Edward Hawke and Sir 
Jeffery Amherst are no better provided for. 
But we are indebted to your Lord- 
ship for another discovery of merit equally 
latent with Mr Bradshaw's. — You have a 
phoenix of a deputy, though yet he is but 
young in his nest. — He has hardly had time 
to clear his wings from the ashes that gave 
him birth. — This too was your Lordship's 
apology for ruining general Fowke. You 
gave it in evidence, that you had been but 
four -months in office ; and now you tell 
us that your deputy also is in the same 
unfledged state of noviciate ; — though for 
abihties and knowledge of the world, neither 
Jew nor Gentile can come up to him ! 
For shame, my lord Barrington, send this 
whiffling broker back to the mystery he was 
bred in. Though an infant in the war- 
office, the mari is too old to learn a new 
trade. — At this very moment they are calling 
out for him at the bar of Jonathan's — 
Shammy ! — Shammy ! — Shammy ! — The 
house of Israel are waiting to settle their 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



503 



last asoount with him. — During his absence 
things may take a desperate turn in the 
alley, and you never ma^ be able to make 
up to the man what he has lost in half-crowns 
and sixpences already. 

VETERAN. 



LETTER ex. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 23 March, 1772. 

I DESIRE you will inform the public 
that the worthy lord Barrington, not con- 
tented with having driven Mr D'Oyly out 
of the war-office, has at last contrived to 
expel Mr Francis.^ His Lordship will ne- 
ver rest till he has cleared his office of every 
gentleman who can either be serviceable to 
the public, or whose honour and integrity 
are a check upon his own dark proceedings. 
Men who do their duty with credit and 
ability, are not proper instruments for lord 
Barrington to work with. — He must have a 
broker from 'Change Alley for his deputy, 
and some raw, ignorant boy for his first 
clerk. I think the pubHc have a right to 
call upon Mr D'Oyly and Mr Francis to 
declare their reasons for quitting the war- 
office. Men of their unblemished character 
do not resign lucrative employments with- 
out some sufficient reasons. The conduct 
of these gentlemen has always been ap- 
proved of, and I know that they stand as 
well in the esteem of the army as any per- 
sons in their station ever did. What then 
can be the cause that the public and the 
army should be deprived of their service ? — 
There must certainly be something about 
lord Barrington which every honest man 
dreads and detests. Or is it that they can- 
not be brought to connive at his jobs and 
underhand dealings ? — They have too much 
honour, I suppose, to do some certain 
business by coinmisslon. — They have not 



^ Francis, now Sir Philip, and D'Oyly were 
chief clerks in ihe war-office : the displacement 
of D'Oyly to make room for Chamier has been 
already noticed in Letter CV. — Edit. 



been educated in the conversation of Jews 
and gamblers ; — they have had no expe- 
rience at Jonathan's ; — they know nothing 
of the stocks ; and therefore lord Barring- 
ton drives them out of the war-office. — The 
army indeed is come to a fine pass, with a 
gambling broker at the head of it ! — What 
signifies ability, or integrity, or practice, or 
experience in business? Lord Barrington 
feels himself uneasy while men with such 
quahfications are about him. He wants 
nothing in his office but ignorance, impu- 
dence, pertness, and servility. Of tliese 
commodities he has laid in a plentiful 
stock, that ought to last him as long as he 
is secretary at war. Again, I wish that Mr 
Francis and Mr D'Oyly would gi\e the 
pubhc some account of what is going for- 
ward in the war-office. I think these 
events so remarkable, that some notice 
ought to be taken of them in the House of 
Commons. When the public loses the 
service of two able and honest servants, it is 
but reasonable that the wretch, who drives 
such men out of a pubhc office, should be 
compelled to give some account of himself 
and his proceedings. 

VETERAN. 



LETTER CXI. 



TO LORD BARRINGT0N.2 

My Lord, 4 May, 1772. 

I AM a Scotchman, and can assure 
your Lordship that I do not esteem my 
country, or the natives of it, the less be- 
cause we are not so happy as to be hon- 
oured with lord Barrington' s favourable 
opinion. — From a pamphlet, which lately 
fell in my way, I perceive that there is 
something in the temper of the Scots, that 
does not suit the manly, sterling virtue 
which distinguishes your own worthy cha- 
racter. We are too insolent to those 
beneath us, and too obsequious to our 
superiors ; and with such a disposition 
must never hope to find favour with lord 



^ The original copy of this letter is still in the 
hands of the proprietor of this edition. — Edit. 



S04 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Banington ! ' And Cockburne, like most 
' of his cotmtrymen, is as abject to those 
above him, as he is insolent to those below 
him.' These are your words, given under 
your hand, as the solemn, deliberate opin- 
ion of his Majesty's secretary at war. Such 
a censure, coming from a man of honour, 
good sense, or integrity, might perhaps 
have some weight with the thoughtless or 
uncandid. But when it comes from a man 
whose whole life has been employed in act- 
ing the part of a false, cringing, fawning, 
time-serving courder, — from a man who 
never had a different opinion from the min- 
ister for the time being, and who has 
always contrived to keep some lucrative 
place or other under twenty different ad- 
ministrations, I am not so much offended 
at the reproach itself, which you have 
thought proper to throw upon the Scots, as 
I am shocked at the unparalleled impu- 
dence of applying your own individual 
character to a whole nation. — It seems my 
countrymen are abject to those above them. 
Pray, my good Lord, by what system of 
conduct have you recommended yourself 
to every succeeding minister for these last 
twenty years? — Was it by maintaining your 
opinion upon all occasions, with a blunt, 
firm integiity, or was it by the basest and 
•vilest servility to every creature that had 
power to do you either good or evil ? — But 
we are insolent to those below us. Indeed, 
my Lord, you paint from your own heart. 
There is courage at least in our composi- 
tion. It is the coward who fawns upon 
those above him. It is the coward that is 
insolent, wherever he dares be so. You 
have had some lessons which have made 
you more cautious than you used to be. 
You have reason to remember that modest, 
humble merit will not always bear to be 
insulted by an upstart in office. For the 
future, my little Lord, be more sparing of 
your reflections upon the Scots. We pay 
no regard to the calumny of anonymous 
writers, and despise the malignity of John 
Wilkes. But when a man, so high in office 
as you are, pretends to give an odious cha- 
racter of a whole nation, and sets his name 



to it, we should deserve the reproach, if we 
did not resent it. You are so detested and 
despised by all parties (because all parties 
know you) that England, Scotland, and 
Ireland have but one wish concerning you, 
and that is, that, as you have shewn your- 
self a fawning traitor to every party and 
person, with which you ever were connect- 
ed, so all parties may unite in loading you 
with infamy and contempt. 

SCOTUS. 



LETTER CXII. 



TO THE RIGHT-HONOURABLE THE LORDS 
COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY. 

My Lords, 8 May, 1772. 

Having seen in last Saturday's 
paper that Mr Bradshaw was appointed to 
be a member of your board, give me leave 
to congratulate your Lordships on the 
event, as a person of Mr Bradshaw's birth 
and talents may be of the greatest use to 
you on many occasions, besides adding in- 
finitely more weight and dignity to the 
board ; I was therefore a good deal sur- 
prised at the simple manner in which his 
well-?nerited promotion was announced to 
the pubhc, but must attribute it either to 
his own modesty, or the printer's ignorance : 
but whatever be the cause, I think it neces- 
saiy to acquaint you, his brother lords, 
with a little of his history. 

It is needless to trouble your Lordships 
with an account of his birth or education, 
as the first might be a very difficult task, 
and the latter your Lordships may see has 
not been neglected. His first appearance 
in the great world was as one of lord Bar- 
rington's domestics, from whence he moved 
to Ireland, set up a shop, and under the 
influence of a happy planet returned to 
England, where, by means of his uncom- 
mon address in administering to the plea- 
sures of the great, he was appointed one of 
the secretaries to the Treasury, which office 
he held during the duke of Grafton's ad- 
ministration, and by exerting his happy 
talents between his Grace and the cele- 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



505 



brated Nancy Parsons, he so far ingratiated 
himself with the duke, that he became his 
chief confident, and was privy to the whole 
of his gcneroiis treatment of that young 
lady, and of course became his Grace's 
bosom friend ; for which service he first re- 
ceived a pension oi fifteen hundred poiaids 
a year for three lives, and, that not being 
sufficient, is now made one of you. I can- 
not avoid again congratulating you on the 
acquisition of such a brother member, as it 
is to be hoped he will assist any of your 
Lordships with his good offices upon all 
occasions. 

I have the honour to be, 
My Lords, 
Your Lordships' most humble 
And obedient servant, 
Pall-Malt. ARTHUR TELL-TRUTH. 



LETTER CXI 1 1. 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC 
ADVERTISER. -l 

Sir, 12 May, 1772. 

I AM just returned from a visit 
in a certain part of Berkshire, near which 
I found lord Barrington had spent his 
Easter holidays. His Lordship, I presume, 
went into the country to indulge his grief ; 
for whatever company he happened to be 
in, it seems his discourse turned entirely 
upon the hardship and difficulty of his situ- 
ation. The impression which he would be 
glad to give of himself is, that of an old, 
faithful servant or the crown, who on one 
side is abused and vilified for his great zeal 
in support of government, and at the same 
time gets no thanks or reward from the 
king or the administration. He is modest 
enough to affirm in all companies, that his 
services are unrewarded ; that he bears the 
burthen ; that other people engross the 
profits ; and that he gets nothing. Those 
who know but little of his history may per- 



''■ This letter was advertised under the title of 
Memoirs of lord Barrington, in compliance with 



haps be inclined to pity him ; but he and I 
have been old acquaintance, and consider- 
ing the size of his understanding, I believe 
I shall be able to prove, that no man in the 
kingdom ever sold himself and his services 
to better advantage than lord Barrington. — 
Let us take a short review of him from his 
political birth. 

On his entrance into the House of Com- 
mons he declared himself a patriot ; but he 
soon found means to dispose of his patriot- 
isin for a seat at the Admiralty-board. 
This worthy man, before he obtained his 
price, was as deeply engaged in opposition 
to government, as any member of the 
Fountain club to which he belonged. He 
then thought it no sin to run down sir 
Robert Walpole, though now he has 
altered his tone. To oppose the measures 
of governrnent, however dangerous to the 
constitution, or to attack the persons of 
ministers, however justly odious to the 
nation, is now rank faction in the opinion 
of tlie phant lord Barrington. His allegi- 
ance follows the descent of power, nor has 
he ever been known to dispute the validity 
of the minister's title, as long as he con- 
tinued in possession. 

His Lordship remained at the Admiralty, 
until long servility and a studious attach- 
ment to the duke of Newcastle had en- 
gaged his Grace to recommend him for 
secretary at war. When the Duke resigned 
in the year 1756, he of course expected that 
lord Barrington would have followed him. 
But his Lordship's gratitude to his patron 
Vv-as not quite heavy enough to weigh 
against two thousand five hundred a year. 
He knew the value of his place, and kept it 
by making the saitie professions to Mr 
Pitt and lord Temple by which he had 
deceived the duke of Newcastle. Before 
the late king's death, he had taken early 
measures to secure an interest at Carlton 
House ; and when his present Majesty 
could no longer bear him as secretary at 
war, he found means to ingratiate himself 



the request of the author. See private note, No. 
62. — Edit. 



5o6 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



so far with lord Bute, that for some time he 
was suffered to be chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer ; and when that post appeared to 
be not tenable, he still had art and con- 
trivance enough to secure himself in the 
lucrative office of treasurer of the Navy. In 
1762, he was the most humble servant of Mr 
Fox. In 1763 and 1764, he was no enemy 
to Mr Grenville. In 1765, he gave himself 
back, body and soul, to the late duke of 
Cumberland and lord Rockingham. This 
last manoeuvre restored him to the war- 
office, where he has continued ever since, 
with equal fidelity to Mr Pitt, the duke of 
Grafton, and lord North ; and now he 
modestly tells the world that he gets nothing 
by his services. 

Besides the singular good fortune of 
never being himself a moment out of place, 
he has had extraordinary success in pro- 
viding for every branch of his family. One 
brother was a general officer, with a regi- 
ment and chief command at Guadaloupc. 
A second is high in the navy with a regi- 
ment of marines. A third is a judge, and 
the fourth is a bishop. Yet this is the man 
who complains that he gets nothing. At 
the same time his parliamentary interest is 
so inconsiderable, that ever since his cant- 
ing hypocrisy and pretended attachment 
to the dissenters was discovered at Berwick, 
he has been obliged to the influence of 
government for a seat in the House of 
Commons, which he holds without its 
costing him a shilling. 

Having given you a short account of the 
emoluments he has received from govern- 
ment, I should be very glad to see as faith- 
ful an account of his services. Some of 
them are probably of a secret nature, of 
which we can form no judgment. His 
ostensible services, in the public opinion at 
least, have been considerably overpaid. At 
his very outset, the blundering orders he 
sent to Gibraltar might have occasioned the 
loss of that important place. When the 
fate of Gibraltar was at stake, we had a 
secretary at war who could neither write 
plain English nor common sense. But he 
compensated for his own blunder by ruin- 



ing the worthy general Fowke, whom he 
and a certain countess (taking a base 
advantage of the unhappy man's distress), 
prevailed upon to write a letter, the recol- 
lection of which soon after broke his heart. 
In the House of Commons, I think, the 
noble Lord was never reckoned an able 
debater. Poor B — ch for many years was 
his nickname. His time-serving duplicity 
is now so well known, that he seldom speaks 
without being laughed at. Sometimes his 
folly exceeds all bounds ; as, for instance, 
when he traduced the whole body of gen- 
eral officers, whioh, I presume, they will not 
readily forget. In the war-office he has 
made it his study to oppress all the lower 
part of the army by a multitude of foolish 
regulations, by which he hoped to gain the 
reputation of great discipline and economy, 
but which have only served to make him as 
odious to the military, as he is to every 
other rank of people in the kingdom. With 
respect to the public in general, I presume 
there never was a man so generally or so 
deservedly detested as himself. The people 
of this country will never forget nor forgive 
the inhuman part he took in the affair of 
St George's Fields. Other secretaries at 
war have oixlered out troops to assist the 
civil magistrate. For this man it was re- 
served, to give it under his hand, that he 
rejoiced and exulted in the blood of his 
fellow-subjects. This stroke alone would 
be sufficient to determine his character. 
Yet so far from having done the king any 
service by his officious zeal upon this occa- 
sion, I am convinced that no one circum- 
stance has so much contributed to throw an 
odium upon the present reign. I will not 
suppose it possible, that the best of princes 
could be pleased with the treason, but I am 
sure he has reason enough to hate the 
traitor. 

Such are the services, which, in his Lord- 
ship's opinion, can never be sufficiently 
rewarded. He complains that he gets 
nothing, although, upon a moderate com- 
putation, he has not received less of the 
public money than fifty-three thousand 
pounds, viz. : 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



507 



Ten years lord of the Admiralty ;^8ooo 

Eighteen years either secretary 
at war, chancellor of the 
Exchequer, or treasurer of 
the Navy, at 2500 per an- 
num 45,000 

53.000 
It is not possible to ascertain what 
further advantages he may have made by 
preference in subscriptions, lottery tickets, 
and the management of large sums lying in 
his hands as treasurer of the Navy. Mr 
Chamier, if he thought proper, might give 
us some tolerable account nf the matter. 
When a secretary at war chooses a broker 



for his deputy, it is not difificult to guess 
what kind of transactions must formerly 
have passed between them. I don't mean 
to question the honour of Mr Chamier. He 
always had the reputation of as active a 
httle fellow as any in Jonathan's. But 
putting all things together, 1 think we may 
affirm that, when lord Barrington com- 
plains of getting nothing from government, 
he must have conceived a most extravagant 
idea of his own importance, or that the 
inward torture he suffers, from knowing- 
how thoroughly he is hated and despised, 
is such as no pecuniary emoluments can 
repay. 

NEMESIS. 



INDEX. 



A.B., Letter of, to the duke of Grafton, 433 ; 
his Grace's treatment of the duke of Rutland 
exposed, 433, 434 ; letter to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, in vindication of Junius, 

492, 493- . . , 

Adair (Mr), argument agamst granting a «^/. 
/ros. in favour of the messengers of the House 
of Commons, 482, ei seq. notes. 

Addison (Mr;, remark on anonymous writers, 
1 39, note. . 

Addresses from parliament, considered as _a 
fashionable unmeaning formahty, 235 ; their 
consequences considered, when they mean 
exactly what they profess, 236. 

Adini7iistration of government the ruin or pros- 
perity of a state, 320. ,, T, J 

Admiralty (Lords of), letter to, on Mr Brad- 
shaw's appointment to be one of their number, 

Advocate in the cause of the people, letter of, to 
Junius, 317, 318, notes; reply to by Philo- 
Junius, 317, 318. ■ ■, c 

Almon (Mr), prosecution of, for libel, 116, note; 
remark on his exaggerated statements, 213, 
note; inaccuracies in his edition of Junius, 
detected, 49, and note. r . , , ^ 

A7nerica, patronized by Mr Pitt and lord Cam- 
den, 130; new office established for trans- 
acting Its affairs, 130; origin of that office, 
130, note. See Colonies. 

Amicus Cnrice, letter of, on the ministerial con- 
troversy, 428, 429. -r ^ 

Amherst rSir Jeffery), suffered to be sacrificed, 
137; dismissed fromhis government in America, 
388 • strictures of L. L. on this measure, 388 ; 
lord Hillsborough's conduct towards him con- 
sidered, 391, 394, 396, 39^ ; his negotiation with 
the duke of Grafton considered, 398, 399 ; let- 
ter of the earl of Hillsborough to him, 4°°, 
7iote : the chief command of the American 
troops was never offered to sir Jeffery, 402 ; 
further remarks on this affair, 402, 403, 408 ; his 
noble and disinterested conduct in America, 4 1 1. 

Anotiytnons Letters, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 360 ; strictures on the dispute with 
America, 360—362 ; that a minister who is de- 
termined to do wrong, roust be a jnan of 
abilities and courage, 363 ; the establishment 
of the high offices of state, a check on the pre- 



rogative of the crown, 364 ; to the duke of 
Grafton, 375 ; on his Grace's indehcale con- 
duct at the Opera-house, 376 ; to the printer of 
the Public Advertiser, 386 ; the state of the 
colonies considered, 386, 387; to the prmter 
of the Public Advertiser, 389; the effects of 
the Stamp Act and other tea acts on the colo- 
nies, considered, 389, 390 ; to the right_ hon. 
Geo. Grenville, 423 ; his influence and integ- 
rity stated and considered, 423, 424. 
Anti-Belial, letter of, on Junuis's_ attack upon 
lord Mansfield, 494 ; further vindication of 

Junius, 497, 498. . r .U TD T, 

A?iti-Fox, letter of, to the printer of ^ the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, 491, 492 '• °^ Junius s conduct 
to lord Holland, 492. _ 

Anti-Junius, letter of, to Junius, on his stric- 
tures on the bailing of Mr Eyre, 492 493, w^z"^ ; 
extract from his answer to Junius s 67th letter, 
495, «^2?^; reply thereto, 495- . 

Anti-Seja7ius, letter of, to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 345. 34^ ; the mischiefs of 
lord Bute's government stated, 346. 

Anti-va7i-Teague, letter of, on sir William Low- 
ther's grant, 369; reply to, by Anti-Stuart, 370. 

Arbitrary principles, growth of, in this country, 
369. . . - 

Ashbicrton (Lord). See Dwining, ^nfra 

A tticnss letter to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 391 ; the state of the country con- 
sidered, previously to the war with America, 
392, 393; defends his statement, 411—413; 
review of the measures of ministers, 414—418 ; 
the statements of Atticus vindicated by bru- 
tus, 419, 420 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 420 ; the most contemptible charac- 
ter is that, which possesses neither judgment 
nor inclination to do right, nor resolution 
enough to be consistent in doing wrong, 420 ; 
this remark illustrated in the duke of Grafton s 
administration, 421, 422. , „ , , , 

Augur, letter of, on the duke of Grafton s ad- 
ministration, 432. r t- TJ f 

Aylesbury election, resolution of the House ot 
Lords concerning, 174- 

Bail, statement of the law of, 325, et seq. 
Barrington (Lord), memoirs of his pohtical lite 
and delinquencies, 505—507 ; extract of a letter, 



INDEX. 



509 



125 ; letter to the magistrates of Surrey, 231, 
}iote ; portrait of, 348 ; his conduct, as secre- 
tary at war, condemned by Testis, 451 ; iron- 
ically defended by Testiculus, 451, 452 ; letters 
of a Veteran to him on his choice of a deputy 
secretary, 496, 497 ; curious dialogue, sup- 
posed to have passed in his office, 497 ; his 
Lordship charged with ruining general Fowke, 
4q8 ; state of the fact, 498, 7iote ; his political 
changes examined, 499 ; his changes in the 
war-office, 499 ; conversation of his Majesty 
with lord iJ., 499 ; the affair of St George's 
Fields considered, 500 ; his ungenerous nick- 
naming of general Harvey censured, 500 ; 
dialogue between his Lordship and one of_ his 
agents, 500, 501 ; estimate of his Lordship's 
abilities, 502 ; on his abuse of the Scotch char- 
acter, 503, 504. 

Barrister's defence of lord Mansfield against 
the several charges brought by Junius, 318 — 
320, notes; reply to him by a 'friend of 
Junius,' 318 — 321. 

Beckford (Mr Lord Mayor}, letter to_ a Livery- 
man on embezzlement of the public money, 
59, 60. 

Bedford (Corporation of) admit strangers to 
their freedom, in order to shake off the 
tyranny of the duke of Bedford, 190 ; history 
of the circumstance, 190, 7/1?/^. 

Bedford (Duke oC, unpopular, 188 ; causes of 
his unpopularicy stated, 188, 7iote ; a letter to 
him from Junius, 188, et seq. ; his feelings 
nice, if to be judged from his resentments, 188 ; 
comparative view of his Grace's advantages, 
what he was and what he miglit have been, 
188, 189 ; avows his selling a borough, 189, 
and 7iote ; defeated by the corporation of Bed- 
ford, 190, and note ; accused of insensibility 
on the loss of his son, 190 ; is horse-whipped 
at Litchfield, 190, 7iote ; his Grace every way 
unfortunate, 190 ; his embassy to Versailles, 
the first important part of his history, 190 ; 
anecdote of his mission, 191, 7iote ; those 
who are acquainted with his Grace's pecu- 
niary character, are apt to suspect that such 
sacrifices would not have been made without 
some private compensations, 191 ; stipulations 
between him and lord Bute violated, 191 ; his 
outrageous conduct to the king, 191, 192 ; 
again solicits lord Bute's friendship, 192 ; 
measures to obtain and confirm his power, 192 ; 
admonitions of Junius to him, 193 ; vindicated 
by sir William Draper, 196, 197 ; Junius's 
view of his character, 198, 199 ; anecdotes of 
his Grace's liberality, and vindication of him, 
199, 200, 7iotes ; makes a public display of in- 
sensibility at the death of his son, 203 ; anec- 
dote of his parsimony, 203, note ; character of 
his Grace's friends, 418. 

Bedford (Duchess of), anecdote of, 203, Jtote. 

Be7iso7t (Mr), challenged as a juryman by lord 
Mansfield, 250, 315. 

Bifrons, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 376 ; the duplicity of ministers ex- 
posed, 376, 377. 

Bill of Rights' Society, declaration and resolur 
tions of, 91, 92, 7wte ; examination of their re- 



spective clauses by Junius, 91 — 97; remarks on, 
by Mr Wilkes, 110. 

Bi7igley (Mr), imprisoned for contumacy, 145, 
7iote ; illegally imprisoned, ■2\-],note. 

Blacksto7te (Dr), solicitor to the Queen, 164 ; 
more anxious to preserve his place than his 
reputation, 164 ; letter to him from Junius, 
17s ; remarks on a pamphlet in defence of his 
conduct, 175, et seq. ; charged with asserting 
in the House of Commons doctrines differing 
from those maintained in his Commentaries, 
176; strictures thereon, 176, 177; that, when 
he spoke in the House, he never once thought 
on the Commentaries, until the contradiction 
was imexpectedly urged, 179 ; extract from his 
Commentaries on acts of attainder, 178, 7iote ; 
postscript to his pamphlet, entitled ' An An- 
swer to the Question stated,' 179, et seq. ; 
Junius's reply thereto, 182, et seq.; his doc- 
trine on the pains of death examined, 427, 428. 

^(^j-z"!?;;, .proceedings at, considered, 360, 361. 

Boutetort (Lord), appointed to succeed sir J. 
Amherst, as governor of Virginia, 388 ; reflec- 
tions on the choice of his Lordship, 389 ; re- 
marks on his Lordship, 391, 394, 395, 397. 

Boyd (Hugh Macaulay), a pretended author of 
the letters of Junius, 44 ; anecdotes of, 44 ; 
examination of the claims made for him, 44, 
et seq. ; proved 7iot to be Junius, 50. 

Bradshaw (Mr), secretary to the duke of Graf- 
ton, account of, 164, 7iote ; amount of his pen- 
sion, and how secured, 225, 7iote ; is called 
upon to convince and undeceive the public, 
445, 446 ; exculpated by Mr Cooper, 448 ; 
further remarks on Mr B.'s conduct,448 ; letter 
to him, 448, 449 ; account of his political 
career, 504. 

Bro77ifield (Mr), opinion of, on the murder of 
George Clarke, 149, 7iote. 

Brooke (Dr), said to be quartered upon the 
salary of a patent place, purchased by Mr 
Hine, 68, 211. 

Bmtus, letter of, to lord North, on the choice of 
his friends and ministerial conduct, 73, 7iote ; 
to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 414 ; 
the state of the ministry examined, 414 ; to the 
printer of the Public Advertiser, 419 ; the same 
subject continued, 419, 420. 

Bucarelli (the Spanish governor of Buenos 
Ayres), acted in obedience to his order, 253, 
254- 

Bjirgoy7te (Colonel), history of the sale of a 
patent place, 67, 68 ; his expenses at Preston, 
210 ; the purchase-money of the patent place 
said to be given to him for his services there, 
211, and note. 

Burke (Mr), extract from his remarks on Junius, 
3, note ; proof that he was 7iot the author of 
Junius's Letters, 33, et seq. ; extracts from his 
speech on American taxation, 34 ; his enco- 
miums on lord Rockingham, 34 ; and on gen- 
eral Conway, 35 ; speech of, in the House of 
Commons, on the liberty of the press, 119 — 121, 
7iote : satirical speech attributed to him, 354, 
355, 7iotes. 

Bute (Earl of), strictures on his mal-administra- 
tion, 346. 



5IO 



INDEX. 



Butler (Dr, Bishop of Hereford), estimate of his 
talents, 39 ; proofs that he did not write the 
Letters of Junius, 40. 



C. ( the private signature of yunitts), letter of, 
to the printer of the PubHc Advertiser, 371 ; 
the conduct of ministers towards Mr Wilkes, 
since his return to this country, examined, 371, 
et seq. ; to the same, 373 ; examination of the 
maxim, nulhi7n tempus occurrit regi, 373, et 
seq. ; to the same, 378 ; that the endeavours of 
ministers to make us happy, have been equally 
indefatigable and ingenious, 378 ; illustration 
of this remark, by a detail of their conduct, 
378 ; to the same, on the new commission cf 
trade, 382, 383 ; reply to Insomnis, on the same 
subject, 384, 385. 

Calamities (national) caused by the conduct and 
character of ministers, 136. 

Calcraft (Mr), his vote worth reckoning in a 
division, 309 ; introduced into political notice 
by lord Holland, 309, note. 

Camden (Lord), queries of, to lord Mansfield, on 
his charge to the jury at Mr Woodfall's trial, 
118, note; the patron of America, 163; his 
noble resolution concerning the resolution of 
the House of Commons in col. Luttrell's affair, 
224, note ; is commanded to resign the seals in 
consequence, 224, 7iote ; his opinion relative 
to the king's power durmg a recess of parlia- 
ment, 310, 311, 710 te ; letter to his Lordship 
from Junius, 337 ; who calls upon him to stand 
forth in defence of the laws of his country, 
337 ; portrait of, by Correggio, 348, and note ; 
another, by Atticus, 417 ; accepts lord Mans- 
field's challenge, 455 ; who declines to reply to 
lord Camden, 456. 

Campbell (L. D.), his claims for Mr Boyd to be 
the author ofjunius's Letters, examined, 44 
— 50 ; his claims disproved, 50. 

Carlton House, plan of tutelage and future do- 
minion over the heir-apparent, formed there 
many years ago, 214, note. 

Ckamier (M.), appointed deputy secretary at 
war, 81, and 710 te, 496 ; strictures thereon, 
496. 

Charles I. and II. hypocrites, but of different 
sorts, 159 ; treachery of the Scotch to Charles 
I., 218. 

Chatham (Lord), speech in parliament on Mr 
Woodfall's trial, 121, 122, note ; introduces the 
duke of Grafton into the political world, 159, 
and note ; obliged to withdraw his name from 
an administration formed on the credit of it, 
159; extract of his speech on the state of the 
country in 1771, 264, 265, note ; the city of 
London vote their thanks to him for his de- 
claration in favour of short parliaments, and 
his reply, 291, note ; severe invective against 
him, 341 ; letter from his Lordship, stating 
the causes of his resignation, 342, ?iote ; cen- 
sured by Anti-Sejanus, for accepting a pension 
and title, 346 ; the country indebted to him 
for the greatest part of the national debt, 362. 

Choiseul ;M.), anecdote of, 191, note. 

Clarke (Geo.), murdered at the Middlesex elec- 



tion, 148, note; warrant for pardoning his 
supposed murderer, 149, 7tote. 

Cleophas, letters of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 398 ; sir J. Amherst's resignation 
considered, 398, 399, 403, 404. 

Clergy, are incapacitated from sitting in parlia- 
ment, 185. 

Cockbum (Mr Serjeant), character of, 125. 

Coke (Sir Edward), observation on England, 
125 ; his opinion with regard to the power of 
the House of Commons to commit for con- 
tempt, 269. 

Colonies, of America, alienated from their natu- 
ral affection to the mother country, 130 ; Stamp 
Act made and repealed, 130, and a new mode 
of taxing them invented, 130; effect produced 
there by the Stamp Act, 160, 7iote ; origin of 
hostilities between them and the mother 
country, 240, ?iote; no assistance to be expected 
by the king, from their alienated affections, 

218 ; state of, considered, 216—218. 
Commissioned officers, number of, in the Guards, 

219, note. 
Commons, House of, their powers defined, 113 ; 
their conduct in the Middlesex election cen- 
sured by the marquis of Granby, 1^6, note ; 
whether one of its members, who is e.xpelled, 
is thereby incapacitated from being re-elected, 
169, et ieq. ; duties of, defined, 216, 217; that 
they have attributed to their own vote an 
authority equal to an Act of the legislature, 

219 ; are only interpreters, whose duty it is 
faithfully to convey the sense of the people to 
the crown, 236 ; would best consult their dig- 
nity by appealing to the laws when offended, 

264, and «tf ^<? ; arbitrary proceedings of, 264, 

265, and notes ; strictures on their proceedings 
against the Newspaper printers, for reporting 
their debates, 471—473 ; statement of circum- 
stances connected therewith, and remarks on 
their powers of commitment, 471, 472, notes, 
479, et seq. 

Conway (Hon. Henry Seymour), notice of, 

155, note ; portrait of, 347. 
C^tf/^r (Mr Grey), letter, exculpating Mr Brad- 

shaw, 448. 
Cornwallis (Lord), political sketches of, 442, 

443- 

Corrector, letter of, on the errors of Lucius, 
40S, note. 

Correggio (Junius), letter of, 346 ; sketches out- 
lines of subjects for lord Townshend's pencil, 
346 — 340. 

Corsica^ shamefully abandoned, 136 ; brief ac- 
count of its subjugation, 136, note; would 
never have been invaded, had the British 
court interposed with dignity and firmness, 
161, and 7tote. 

Council, satirical minutes of a grand council, 
upon the affairs of Ireland, 351, et seq. 

Crito, letters from, fo Mr Weston, 152, is^^-^^ote. 

Crojnwell (Oliver), with all his crimes, had the 
spirit of an Englishman, 259. 

Crosby '^x Alderman), spirited address to the 
Speaker of the House of Commons, 472, note ; 
committed to the Tower, 472, note ; address to 
him on his conduct, 473, et seq. 



INDEX. 



511 



Crown, undue influence of, caused by long par- 
liaments, 114 ; the maxim, ' that no length of 
time secures against a claim of the crown,' 
examined and refuted, 366, ei seq. 

Cujube/rland (Wm duke of', in bis time, parlla,- 
mentary influence prevailed least in the army, 
141. 

Cumberlafid (late duke of), letter to, on his 
marriage with Mrs Horton, 493, 494 ; account 
thereof, 493, 494. 

Ctimhriensis, letter of, to the duke of Cumber- 
land, 493, 494; his Grace's nuptials considered, 
493, 494- 

Dalrytnple (Mr], the author of the letters to Ju- 
nius, under the signature of Modestus, 121, 
note. 

Debt (public], observations on the increase of, 
130 ; amount of, in 1763, 130, note. 

Dcdicatioji of Junius's Letters to the people oi. 
England, reasons for, 112. 

De Grey (Lord Chief Justice], strictures on his 
charge, while attorney-general, against the 
tendency of Junius's letters, 123. 

De la Fontaiiie (M.), appointed barrack-master 
to the Savoy, 67. 

De Lolme, (J\I.) remark of, on the liberty of the 
press, 127. 

Diui^Iey (Mr), an unsuccessful candidate for the 
county of Middlesex, 151, note; his death, 
274, note. 

Dodd (Lieutenant', applies to lieut. Garth for 
the assistance of his guard to rescue general 
Gansel, 205 ; remarks on Capt. D.'s conduct, 
307. 436, 439, 440- 

Doinitian, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 441 ; political sketches of ministers, 
44T — 443; to the same, 452; the duke of 
Grafton's conduct while in office, examined, 
452 — 454 ; to the same, 459 ; lord Sandwich's 
return to office, considered, 459 ; to the same, 
on the change of ministers, with a view o-f 
tb-ir respective talents, 462 — 465 ; takes leave 
of the duke of Grafton, 490, 491. 

Do-jjfirtght, letter of, to the printer of the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, 362 ; the obligations of the 
country to lord Chatham, 362. 

Draper (Sir Wm), biographical notice of, 135, 
tiote; vindicates and commends lord Granby, 
against the charges of Junius, 133 — 135 ; is in- 
volved in a controversy on account of his de- 
scription of his friend, 138—141, 7iote ; stric- 
tures on Junius's letter to him, 138, et seq. ; 
further vindieatcs lord Granby, 140, note; 
vindicates himself in the affair of the Manilla 
ransom, 142, 143 ; accounts for his promotions, 
143; another letter to Junius, 144; answers a 
question proposed by Junius, 144, 145 ; poli- 
tics of sir William, not violent, 145, note; 
letter to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 
146, note; plan for conciliating parties, 146 ; 
anecdote of, 146, note ; is requested by the 
mar-quis of Granby to desist from vindicating 
him, 146, 147, 7tote ; defends himself against 
Junius, in another letter to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 147, note; to Junius, 193 ; 
complains of Junius's assertion, that he had 



sold the companions of his success, 194 ; that 
it is a malicious falsehood, and challenges 
the writer to meet the charges, 194 ; appeals 
to the gentlemen to whom he had applied 
in this affair, 194 ; to Junius ; that he has 
read his letter to the duke of Bedford with 
horror and astonishment, wherein an affec- 
tionate father is upbraided with the loss of 
an only and most amiable son, 196 ; that 
Junius goes wantonly out of his way to tor- 
ment declining age, 196 ; calls upon Junius 
to prove the duke's avarice before he draws 
his hasty and wicked conclusions, 196 ; but 
if an ambassador loves money too much, is 
this a proof that he has taken any to betray 
his country? 197; that the duke, however 
powerful, is amenable to justice, and that par- 
liament is the solemn and high tribunal, 197 ; 
sir William's account of the ministerial quar- 
rels, 197 ; contradicts the report of his being 
appointed to a government in America, 197, 
198, note; vindicates lord Chatham against Mr 
■ Wilkes, 343 — 345, 7iotes. 

Dunning (J., lord Ashburton), a reputed author 
of Junius, 51 ; proof that he was not Junius, 
51 ; his address to the chamberlain of London, 
on receiving the freedom of the city, 232, 233, 
note. 

Duplicity, the predominant virtue of ministers, 
376. 

Dyer (Samuel), proofs that he was not the 
writer of Junius's letters, 33. 

Dyson (Mr), the author of 'The case of the late 
election for the county of Middlesex con- 
sidered,' 183, 7iote ; remarks on his services by 
Mr Flood, 52 ; loses his pension, 78, ?iote. 



Egremont (Lord), character of, 191, and 7iote. 

Electio7i, right of, the very essence of the con- 
stitution, 157. See Middlesex. 

Ellis (Mr Welbore), sure of disgrace, whether 
he make or suppress a motion, 234 ; account of 
his intended motion, 234, 7iote. 

Embezzlement of public money charged agaiHSt 
lord Holland in a petition of the city of Lon- 
don, 250 ; correspondence thereon between 
lord Holland and Mr Beckford, 250, et seq. 

Eftgland (people of), by nature somewhat phleg- 
matic, 365 ; advantages of this temper, 365 ; 
examples of it, 365, et seq. ; letters on the state 
of, 391 — 393, 411 — 413 ; state of, in the sprisg 
of 1767, 357, et seq. 

Expulsion from the House of Commons, on the 
right of, 157 ; of Mr Wilkes, the question 
thereupon stated, 169, et seq. ; whether the ex- 
pulsion of a member of the House of Com- 
mons creates incapacity of being re-elected, 
170, et seq. ; the expulsion of Mr Walpole, and 
his re-election, how far a case in point, 170, 
171. 

Eyre (John), correspondence between Junius 
and IMr Wilkes on his case, 108, et seq. ; bail- 
ed by lord Mansfield, 322 ; notice of his case, 
322, 323, 7iotes; the affairs stated and exam- 
ined according to the statutes, &c., 326, etseq. ; 
lord Camden's opinion that the bail was illegal, 



512 



INDEX. 



337, note; letter from one of his three bail, 
492, note, 

Faithftd Monitor, letter of one, to the printer 
of the Public Advertiser, 346 ; on the charac- 
ters of lord Townshend and his brother, 346, 
347- 

Falkland's Islands,.pr[va.te letters of Junius con- 
cerning this affair, 71, 72, and notes ; account 
of the seizure of, by order of the king of Spain, 
465, note ; negotiations between the two coun- 
tries in consequence, 465, 466, note ; queries 
proposed thereupon to the judges, 466, note ; 
protest of several peers concerning, 467, 468, 
note ; strictures on the whole of this trans- 
action, 465 — 469. 

Fiat Justitia, letter of, to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 380; strictures on the letter 
of thanks to the commanding officer of the 
troops employed in St George's Fields, 381. 

Flood (Henry, M. P. in Ireland), proof that he 
did not Vvrite the letters of Junius, 52. 

Foot (Mr), opinion on the murder of Geo. Clarke, 
149, 7iote. 

Ford (Mr), character of, 410 ; parallel between 
him and the earl of Hillsborough, 410. 

Fowke (General), ruined by lord Earrington, 498 ; 
state of the circumstances, 498, 499, note. 

Fox (Right Hon. C. J.), speech of, in the House 
of Commons on liberty of the press, 118, 119, 
note ; nobly carries a bill through parliament, 
declaring juries to be full judges both of the 
law and the fact, 248, 249, note. 

Fra-nce, influence of, over the continent might 
have been curtailed, 161, note. 

Freedojji of the press, the palladium of English 
rights, 113 ; strictures on, 115 — 119. 

G. A., objections of, to Junius's state of the 
question concerning the Middlesex election, 
172, note. 

Game Laws, oppressive to the subject, 322. 

G(2«i-^/(Major-General), arrest of, 204, and 7iote ; 
rescued from the bailiffs by a corporal and 
other soldiers, 205 ; Junius's reasons for not 
pushing his inquiries against the general, 436, 
note ; remarks of X. X. on his case, 438 — 
440. 

Garter, number of knights necessary to consti- 
tute a chapter, 469. 

Garth (Lieutenant), declines interfering in be- 
half of general Gansel, 205 ; and stands aloof 
while another officer orders out the king's 
guard to rescue him, 205 ; remarks on this con- 
duct, 439, 440. 

Garrick (Mr), admonitory letter of Junius to 
him, 75 ; threatened by Mr Wilkes if he per- 
formed a particular character, 75, note ; letter 
of Mr Wilkes on this character, 75, 76, note. 

General Warrants, in what respects different 
from />ress -warrants, 318. 

Gisiorne [Colonel), motives of sir Wm Draper 
for resigning his regiment to him, 143 ; colonel 
Draper resigned it to him for his half-pay, 144 ; 
accepts a pension for the government of Kin- 
sale, 243, ?iote. 

Gower (Lord), unduly elected a knight of the gar- 



ter, 469 ; account of the transaction, 470, note ; 
strictures thereon, 469, 470. 
Grafton (Duke of), notice of his political life, 
415, 416 ; resigns his office of first lord" of the 
Treasury, 222, note; portrait of, by Correggio 
(Junius), 347, 348 ; Letters of Junius to his 
Grace, 148, et seq. ; on what footing he ac- 
ceptedj and soon after resigned, the secretary- 
ship of state, 129, and 7iote ; character of his 
administration, 129 ; the only act of mercy he 
recommended to his Majesty disapproved, 
148 ; examination of MacQuirk's affair, 148, 
et seq., ^zy, 428 ; one fatal mark fixed on every 
measure in which he is concerned, 150 ; ruins 
sir James Lowther's interest in Cumberland 
for ever, 151 ; a singular instance of youth 
without spirit, 151 ; is obliged either to aban- 
don a useful partisan, or to protect a felon 
from public justice, 151 ; requested to state for 
which of Mr Wilkes's good qualities he hon- 
oured him with his friendship, 152 ; was at 
first scrupulous of even exercising those powers 
with which the executive power of the legis- 
lature is invested, 153 ; charged with reserving 
proofs of his intrepid spirit for trials of greater 
hazard, 155 ; and with balancing his non-exe- 
cution of the laws with a breach of the consti- 
tution, 155; the seating of colonel Luttrell in 
parliament entails on posterity the immediate 
effects of his administration, 156 ; remarks on 
his Grace's conduct in this affair, 157 ; base 
conduct of, to his mistress, 157, 7iote ; in his 
system of government, he addresses himself to 
the touch, 158 ; curious speculation on his 
character, 158 ; its resemblance to that of his 
royal progenitors, 158 ; origin of his Grace's 
house, 159, 7iote ; at the outset of his political- 
career, was a patriot of no unpromising expect- 
ations, 159 ; account of his Grace's introduc- 
tion into political life, 159, 7iote ; has many 
compensations to make in the closet for his 
former friendship with Mr Wilkes, 159 ; his 
union by marriage, not imprudent in a poli- 
tical point of view, 160; his public conduct as a 
minister, the counterpart of his private history, 
160 ; effects of his administration, 162 ; im- 
moral conduct of, 162 ; the whole course of his 
life, a strange endeavour to unite contradic- 
tions, 163 ; his insult to public decorum at the 
Opera-house, 164, 376 ; alwaj's has some rea- 
sons for deserting his friends, 165 ; his poli- 
tical infant state, childhood, puberty, and 
manhood, 165 ; if his talents had kept pace 
with the principles of his heart, he would have 
become a most formidable minister, 166 ; the 
people find a resource in the weakness of his 
understanding, 166 ; his Grace, the leader of a 
submissive administration, collected from the 
deserters of all parties, 167 ; wholesome ad- 
vice to his Grace, 168 ; his coyness in reject- 
ing Mr Vaughan's proposals compared to the 
termagant chastity of a prude, 210 ; is re- 
quired to state the price of the patent pur- 
chased by Mr Hine, 210; remarks on the sale 
of offices by the duke, 211, et seq.; in his public 
character has injured every subject in the em- 
pire, 222 ; the event of all the sacrifices he 



INDEX. 



513 



made to lord Bute's patronage, 222 ; at the 
most active period of life compelled to quit the 
busy scene, and conceal himself from the 
world, 222 ; disregards the petitions presented 
to the king, 223 ; situation in which he aban- 
doned his roj-al master, 223, et seq.; contented 
himself with pronouncing Sir LuttreU's pane- 
gyric, 243 ; is restored to his rank under the 
royal standard, 272 ; Junius confesses his great 
intrinsic merit, but cautions him not to value 
it too highly, 272 ; in vain would the king 
have sought a more consummate character, 
272 ; Junius remembers with gratitude how 
the duke accommodated his morals to the 
necessity of his service, 273 ; his Grace's 
abundance of other merit which secured the 
favour of his sovereign, 273 ; that his Grace 
never formed a friendship which was not fatal 
to the object of it, nor adopted a cause 
which he did not injuie, 274 ; his re-ap- 
pointment to the cabinet, announced by the 
ominous return of lord Bute, 275 ; all his 
Grace's measures calculated to make his ^la- 
jesty's government contemptible and ridicul- 
ous, 275 ; that his Grace is the pillow upon 
which Junius is determined to rest all his re- 
sentments, 276 ; letter to the duke from 
Junius, 29S ; to what enormous excesses the 
influence of the crown has conducted his Grace, 
without a ray of real undei'Standing, or a single 
spark of resolution, 298 ; in what a hopeful 
state he delivered the na\y to his successor, 
2(>g ; a warrant issued for cutting timber in 
^Vhittlebury Forest, of which his Grace is 
hereditary' ranger, 299 ; his Grace's cruel con- 
duct on this occasion to the deputy ranger, 
300 ; the duke's assertion, that the property 
of the timber is vested in the ranger, dis- 
proved, 300 ; yet the oaks keep their ground, 
the king is defrauded, and the navy suffers 
for want of timber, and all this to appease the 
duke of Grafton, 300 ; strictures on the duke's 
principles, 301 — 303 ; the storj^ of the oaks, ad- 
dressed to the public and to Junius, 303, 304, 
7iotcs ; to the duke of Grafton, 320 ; the mor- 
tification of his Grace, on sir James Lowther's 
defeat, 320 ; his expedition in hastening the 
grant to transfer the duke of Portland's pro- 
perty to sir James Lowther, 325 ; ironical 
letter to his Grace, from Pomona, 381 ; his 
negotiation with sir J. Amherst considered, 
398, 399; his Grace's ideas of the proper ob- 
ject of a British peerage examined and ex- 
posed, 400, 401 ; strictures on his administra- 
tion, by Atticus, 421, 422 ; he rose bj^ Mr 
Wilkes's popularity, and wiil probably fall by 
it, 422 ; the charges of Junius against the 
duke, contrasted witli the answers of his 
Grace's defenders, 428, 429 ; the scurrilous 
language and conduct of his Grace's hireling 
writers, exposed bj' Augur, 432, 433 ; letter to 
his Grace, by A. B., 433 ; the facility with 
which the duke abandoned his early connex- 
ions in friendship and politics, a recommend- 
ation at court, 433 ; his conduct towards the 
duke of Rutland, in nominating justices, ex- 
posed, 433, 434 ; vindicated by iNIessala, 434, 



435 ; his Grace's conduct, while in power, ex- 
amined and exposed, 452, 453 ; specimen of his 
oratorical talents, 453, 454. 

Graiiby (Lord), charged with accumulating lu- 
crative emploj'ments in his own person and 
family, 131 ; his cares chiefly confined to the 
filling up of commissions, 132 ; is commended 
and vindicated by sir Wm Draper against the 
charges of Junius, 133 — 135 ; further remarks 
on, by Junius, 135 — 138 ; vindication of, by 
Titus, 139, et seq. note; illustrations of his cha- 
racter as a man, as a soldier, and as a general, 
141 ; requested sir William Draper to desist 
from his defence, 146, note ; remarks on his 
character, 146, note; speech of, 146, note; 
portrait of, by Correggio (Junius), 348 ; letter 
to him, b^' (the samet a real friend, 426 ; his 
Lordship's former and present character, con- 
trasted, 426, 427. 

G?'enz'i//e (iMr', at any rate to be distressed be- 
cause he was a minister. 130 ; his administra- 
tion the authors of the Stamp Act, 160, note ; 
account of his political career, 167, note ; vin- 
dicated from some reflections against him, in a 
pamphlet written in defence of sir Wm Black- 
stone, 175, et seq. ; chastised by the Speaker 
of the House of Commons, 179; concurred in 
forming the Stamp Act, and opposing its re- 
peal, 389 ; letter from him to JNIr Knox, 390, 
note ; letter to him from Junius, 423 ; the pe- 

• culiar advantages resulting from his integrity 
and influence pointed out, 423, 424 ; high cha- 
racter of him, by Sir Knox, 424, 425, 7iote ; 
his act for regulating contested elections 
evaded, 454. 

Grosvenor Cause, remarks on, 461. 

Ha-milton (W. G.), notice of, 33, note ; proved 
not to be the writer of Junius's letters, 33 ; 
examination of J\Ir Malone's evidence to the 
contrarj', 38, ei seq. 

Harley (Sir), the government of the city said to 
be committed to him, 27S. 

Hartford (Lord), remarks on his political con- 
duct, 442. 

Hr.rvey (Adjutant-general), character of, 134, 
135- 

Haiuke (Sir Edward), the country highly in- 
debted to him, 132 ; remarks on his political 
career, 441, 442 ; his resignation considered, 
462. 

Henricus, letter of, to lord Suffolk, on his con- 
duct, 483 ; his Lordship the first man who 
avov/ed himself to act without principle, 486 ; 
his political tergiversation, 487, 489 ; letter to 
lord Suffolk, 489 ; his Lordship's resignation a 
pledge of his delicacy, if not of his integrity, 
489 ; strictures on the situation into which his 
Lordship brought himself, 490. 

Hillsboron^h (Earl of', notice of his political 
life, 416, 417 ; is appointed to govern the 
colonies of America, 130 ; strictures on his 
administration, 130, 131 ; origin of the office 
to which he was appointed, 130, note; his 
conduct towards sir J. Amherst considered, 
391, 394 ; letters of Lucius to him on the 
same subject, 396, 397, 399 — 401 ; letter of his 
33 



514 



INDEX. 



Lordship to sir Jeffery Amherst, 399, note; 
reply of A. B. thereto, 400, note ; other letters 
of Lucius on his Lordship's conduct to sir J. 
Amherst, 404 — 411 ; ironical encomium on lord 
H.,413. 
Hine (Mr), history of his purchase of a patent, 
68, 210 ; the price at which it was knocked 
down, 211. 
History, chapters of materials for, 454 — 456. 
Holland (Lord), favoured by Junius, 58 ; peti- 
tion against his embezzling public money, by 
the city of London, 58, 59, note ; his letter to I 
the lord mayor, 59 ; reply of the mayor, 59 ; 
answer of lord Holland, 60 ; observations on 
his accounts, as pay-master-general, 60, 61 ; 
memorial of his Lordship, for longer time to 
make up his accounts, 61 ; his Majesty's war- 
rant to stay process against him for six months, 
61, 62. 
Holt (Lord Chief Justice), anecdote of, 479, 

note. 
Home (Rev. Mr), letter to ]\Ir Onslow, charg- 
ing him with corruption, 63 — 65 ; is prosecuted 
by the latter, who is nonsuited, 65, note ; Ju- 
nius's private opinion on this afiair, 66 ; his 
unfortunate endeavours in support of the nom- 
ination of sheriffs, 276 ; in his principles 
already a bishop, 276 ; his letter to Junius, 
277 ; the reputation gained under this signa- 
ture, draws from him a reply, 277 ; he pro- 
fesses his readiness to lay down his life in 
opposition to ministerial measures, 277 ; that 
he did not solicit one vote in favour of Messrs 
Plumber and Kirkman, 277 ; letter to him from 
Whipcord, 278, note ; letter to him from Ju- 
nius, 279 ; accused of having sold himself to 
the ministry, from his own letters, 279 ; his 
mode of attack on Mr Wilkes censured, 279 ; 
particulars of his dispute with Mr Wilkes, 
279 — 282, note ; is censured for improperly in- 
troducing a lady's name into the papers, 283 ; 
duped Mr Oliver, 283 ; another letter to Ju- 
nius, 283 ; charges him with insufficiency and 
self-contradiction, 283 ; extract from one of 
his letters to Mr Wilkes, relative to their dis- 
pute, 284, 285, note; feels no reluctance to 
attack the character of any man, 286 ; that the 
darkness in which Junius thinks himself 
shrouded has not concealed him, 287 ; reflec- 
tions on the tendency of Junius's principles, 
287, et seq. ; that Mr Wilkes did commission 
Mr Walpole to solicit a pension for him, 289 ; 
that, according to Junius, Mr Wilkes ought to 
hold the strings of his benefactors' purses, so 
long as he continues to be a thorn in the 
king's side, 290 ; that the leaders of the oppo- 
sition refused to stipulate certain points for the 
public, in case they should get into adminis- 
tration, 290 ; Junius's principles will suit no 
form of government, 291 ; is charged by Ju- 
nius with changing the terms of the proposi- 
tion, and supposing him to assert that it would 
be impossible for any man to write in the news- 
papers, and not be discovered, 292 ; Junius 
allows him a degree of merit, that aggravates 
his guilt, 293; his furious persecuting zeal 
softened into moderation, 294 ; that it is 



shameful for him who has lived in friendship 
with Mr Wilkes to reproach him with failings 
naturally connected with despair, 295 ; a fare- 
well epistle from Mr Home to Junius, 297. 
Humphrey .[},\x), horse-whips the duke of Bed- 
ford, 190, tiote. 

Impressible seamen. See Seamen. 

Influence (undue) of the crown, how produced, 

114 ; Scottish, remarks on, 125, 218, 219. 
Innocent Reader, letter of, to the printer of the 

Public Advertiser, 491. 
hiquisitio post mortem, explanation of the term, 

150, 7iote. 
hisomnis, letter of, on the new commission of 

the Board of Trade, 383, 384 ; reply to, by C, 

384, 385- 
Ireland, people of, uniformly oppressed, 217 ; 

parliaments of, made octennial, 240, and 7iote ; 

satirical account of a grand council convened 

on the affairs of Ireland, 351, et seq. 
Irnham (Lord), anecdotes of, 49, note; the 

father of colonel Luttrell, 324, 7iote ; his 

daughter married to the duke of Cumberland, 

493> 494- 

Johnson (Dr), Extract from his 'Thoughts on 
Falkland's Islands,' 256, note. 

Jjidge, one may be honest enough in deciding 
private causes, yet a traitor to the public, 
132. 

Jimia, letter of, to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 430; character of, and conjectures 
on, Junius, 430, 431 ; reply of Junius to her, 

431- 
JUNIUS'S LETTERS, preliminary essay 
ON, i; state of Europe and of parties at home, 
during the period comprised in these letters, i ; 
discontents • in the American colonies, i ; 
character of, and effects produced by, the Let- 
ters of Junius, 2, 3, 9 ; proofs that' the persons 
hitherto supposed to have written these letters, 
are not the authors of them, 4, «£'2^£' ; reasons 
for the present publication, 4, 6 ; account of 
the different signatures under which Junius 
wrote, and the reasons thereof, with extracts, 
5, et seq.; brief characters of sir William 
Draper and the marquis of Granby, 9 ; general 
account of the subjects discussed by Junius, 
9, et seq. ; the private situation and circum- 
stances of Junius, II, et seq., 15, 16, 17 ; proofs 
of his intimate acquaintance with every thing 
connected with the court, 12, 13 ; his secret 
intelligence respecting public events, 13 ; pri- 
vate signals between Junius and his printer, 
13, 14 ; their private correspondence, 14 ; 
attempts made to discover Junius by various 
persons, 15 ; remarks on Junius's last letter to 
lord Camden, 17 ; moral character of Junius, 
18, 22 ; account of the first genuine edition of 
Junius, ig — 21 ; Junius's counsel to Mr Wood- 
fall on his prosecution, 23 ; political principles 
of Junius considered, 24, et seq. ; proofs that j 
Junius was no party-man, 26, 27 ; rehgious 
opinions of Junius, 27, 28 ; knowledge and 
rank of Junius, 28, 29 ; remarks on his style, 
29 — 32 ; and knowledge of the language, laws. 



INDEX. 



515 



constitution, and history of his country, 32 ; 
examination of the claims made to the author- 
ship of Junius, 33, et seq. 

I. Private Letters of Junius. 

To Mr WooDFALL, on the pubHcation of his 
letters, 55, et seq. ; avows the impossibilitj'- of 
his ever being known, 66 ; to jNIr Garrick, on 
his intermeddling with Junius, 75, and note; 
instructions to Mr Woodfall, concerning a col- 
lected edition of his letters, 76. et seq. ; desires 
to have one copy bound m vellum, So ; letter of 
iNIr Woodfall ti, him on that subject, 84, 85. 

To ]Mr Wilkes, 87, et seq. ; Junius assures Mr 
Wilkes of his support on constitutional prin- 
ciples, 87 ; on the Bill of Rights' Society, 87 ; 
on his connexion with Mr Sawbridge, 87, et 
seq. ; Junius proposes a plan for reconciling 
them, 90 ; censures the cunduct of the sup- 
porters of the Bill of Rights, 90—93 ; examines 
the articles of their declaration, 93 — 97, loi ; 
on the proposed election of Mr Crosbj' to be 
lord mayor, 100, loi ; Junius declares that the 
public will never know him, 103 ; permits the 
reading of his second letter to the Bill of 
Rights' Socieiy, 104, et seq.; thanks Mr 
Wilkes for his invitation to Guildhall on lord 
maj'or's day, 107 ; advises him what line of 
conduct to pursue, as sheriff, 107 ; requesting 
information on Eyre's commitment, 108, 109. 

II. Public Letters of Junius. 
Junius dedicates his letters to the people of 

England, 112 ; motives for, 112 ; was not the 
sole depositary of his own secret, 112, and 
note; his motives for publishing his letters, 
115 ; examination of lord Mansfield's curious 
doctrine of libels, 116 — 125 ; letter from, to the 
printer of the Public Advertiser, on the state 
of the nation, and the different departments of 
the state, 128 ; letter to sir William Draper, 
135 ; commends sir William D.'s giving his 
name to the public, but asserts it to have been 
nothing but spirit, 135 ; requires instances of 
lord Granby's military skill, 136 ; proposes 
sundry queries to sir William, 137, 138 ; cha- 
racter of, 140, note ; is called upon by sir 
William to give his real name, T38 ; another 
letter to sir William Draper, 143 ; explains 
sir William's bargain with colonel Gisborne, 
144 ; reply to sir William Draper, 145 ; de- 
clares himself to be a plain, unlettered man, 
145 ; calls upon sir William to justify the de- 
claration of the sovereign in having done an 
act in his favour contrary to law, 147 ; takes 
his leave of sir William, 147, 148 ; sir William 
Draper relinquishes all personal enmity against 
Junius, 146, 7iote ; letter to the duke of Graf- 
ton, 148 ; the only act of mercy to which the 
duke advised his Majesty, meets with dis- 
approbation, 148 ; that it was hazarding too 
much, to interpose the strength of prerogative 
between such a felon as Ivlac Quirk and the 
justice of his countrj', 149 ; the pardoning 
of MacQuirk, and the reasons assigned for it, 
considered, 149, et seq. ; to the duke of Graf- 
ton, 150; that one fatal mark seems to be 



fixed on every measure of his Grace, whether 
in a personal or political character, 150 ; that 
a certain ministerial writer does not defend 
the minister, as to the pardoning of JNIacQuirk, 
on his own principles, 151 ; that his Grace can 
best tell for which of Mr Wilkes's good quali- 
ties he first honoured him with his friendship, 
151; to Mr Edward Weston, 152; quotesfrom 
his supposed pamphlet, with remarks, 153 ; to 
the duke of Grafton, 153 ; that his Grace was 
at first scrupulous of even exercising those 
powers, with which the executive power of the 
legislature is invested, 153, 154 ; that he re- 
served the proofs of his intrepid spirit for 
trials of greater hazard, 155 ; and balanced the 
non-execution of the laws, with a breach of 
the constitution, 155 ; to the duke of Grafton, 
158 ; that his Grace addresses himself simply 
to the touch, 158 ; speculates upon his Grace's 
character, 158 ; his Grace's character resem- 
bles that of his royal ancestors, 158 ; details 
the progress of the duke's political career, 
159, et seq. ; to the duke of Grafton, 166 ; if 
his talents could keep pace with the principles 
of his heart, he would have become a most 
formidable minister, 166 ; that he became the 
leader of an administration, gradually collect- 
ed from the deserters of all parties, interests, 
and connections, 167 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 169 ; attempts to state with 
justice and precision the question arising from 
Mr Wilkes's expulsion, and the appointment 
of Mr Luttrell, 169 ; Mr Walpole's expulsion 
considered, and the case of his re-election how 
far in point, 170, 171 ; to sir William Black- 
stone, 175 ; a certain pamphlet in vindication 
of his conduct, considered, 176 ; Air Grenville 
and sir William Meredith, defended from some 
aspersions in this pamphlet, 176, et seq. ; to 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, 182 ; that 
the author of a certain pamphlet, in defence of 
the proceedings relative to the Middlesex 
election, quotes only such parts of i\Ir Wal- 
pole's case as seemed adapted to his purpose, 
182 ; that the House of Commons meant to 
declare that j\Ir Walpole's incapacity arose 
from the crimes he had committed, 182 — 184 ; 
they also declared the other candidate not 
duly elected, 184 ; explains some passages in 
his last letter, 186 ; to the duke of Bedford, 
188 ; causes of his Grace's unpopularity, 188, 
and 7iote ; that he has lost much of his author- 
ity and importance, 189, et seq. ; importance 
of his mission to Versailles, 190 ; those who 
are acquainted with his Grace's pecuniary 
character, suspect that such sacrifices would 
not have been made without some private com- 
pensations, 191 ; stipulations made between 
him and lord Bute, and violated, 191 ; the 
measures he took to obtain and confirm his 
power considered, 192, 193 ; to sir William 
Draper, 194 ; that, after attacking Junius 
under that character, he had no right to know 
him under any other, 195 ; that sir William 
was appointed colonel of a regiment greatly 
out of his turn, 195 ; Junius does not think it 
necessary he should be exposed to the resent- 



51^ 



INDEX. 



ment of the worst and most powerful men in 
the country, 195 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 198 ; sir Willianr still continues a 
fatal friend, 198 ; the duke of Bedford's liberal- 
ity stated, 199 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 201 ; applauds the spirit with 
which a lady has paid the debt of gratitude to 
her benefactor, 201 ; this single act of benevo- 
lence the more conspicuous from standing 
alone, 201 ; to the printer of the Public Adver- 
tiser, 204 ; the present ministry as singularly 
marked by their fortune as their crimes, 204 ; 
and seem determined to perplex us with the 
multitude of their offences, 204; a major- 
general of the army arrested for a consider- 
able debt, and rescued by a sergeant and some 
private soldiers, 204, 205 ; that this is a wound 
given to the law, and no remedy has been 
applied, 205 ; the main question is, how the 
ministry have acted on this occasion, 205 ; the 
aggravating circumstances of this affair stated, 
206 ; that the regiments of Guards, as a corps, 
are neither good soldiers nor good subjects, 
206 ; that the marching regiments are the best 
troops in the world, 206 ; Junius vindicates 
himself from the charge of inflaming the minds 
of the people, 207 ; to the printer of the Public- 
Advertiser, 209 ; admits the claim of Modestus 
in the Gazetteer, 209 ; that Modestus having 
insinuated that the offenders in the rescue may 
still be brought to trial, any attempt to pre- 
judge the cause would be highly improper, 
209 ; that, if the gentlemen whose conduct is 
in question be not brought to trial, the 
duke of Grafton shall hear from him again, 
209 ; leaves it to his countrymen to deter- 
mine by what motives he is animated, 
209 ; to the duke of Grafton, 209 ; he gives 
the duke credit for his discretion in refus- 
ing Mr Vaughan's proposals, 210 ; enquires 
the price of. Mr Hine's patent, 210; and 
whether his Grace dares to complain of an 
attack upon his own honour while he is selling 
the favours of the crown, 210 ; to the duke of 
Grafton, 210 ; is surprised at the silence of his 
Grace's friends to the charge of having sold a 
patent place, 210 ; the price at which it was 
knocked down, 211; none of his Grace's friends 
are bold enough to deny this charge, 211 ; that 
]Mr Vaughan's offer amounted to a high mis- 
demeanour, 212; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 213 ; Junius supposes a well-in- 
tentioned prince asking advice for the happi- 
ness of his subjects, 213 ; and in what terms an 
honest man, if permitted to approach his 
sovereign, would address him, 213 ; separates 
the amiable prince from the folly and treachery 
of his servants, 214 ; that the king should dis- 
tinguish between his own dignity and Avhat 
serves only to promote the interest and ambi- 
tion of a minister, 214 ; that he should with- 
draw his confidence from all parties, and con- 
sult only his own understanding, 214 ; that 
there is an original bias in his education, 215 ; 
that a little personal motive was sufficient to 
displace the ablest advocates of the crown, 
215; that Mr Wilkes, when he attacked the 



favourite, was unworthy of a king's royal re- 
sentment, 215, 216; that the destruction of one 
man was, for many years, the sole object of 
government, 216 ; that his ministers have 
forced the subj.ects, from wishing well to the 
cause of one man, to unite with him in their 
own, 216 ; that nothing but the repeal of a cer- 
tain resolution can heal the wound given to 
the constitution, 216 ; if an English king be 
hated or despised, he must be unhappy, 217 ; 
that it is in vain for the king to look for assist- 
ance either from Ireland or from the colonies, 
218 ; that the king takes the sense of the army 
from the conduct of the Guards, as he does 
that of the people from the representations of 
the ministry, 219 ; that the House of Commons 
have attributed to their own vote an authority, 
equal to an act of the legislature, 219 ; recom- 
mends to the king a line of conduct towards 
Mr Wilkes, 220, 221 ; to the duke of Grafton, 
222 ; in his public character he has injured 
every subject in the empire, 222 ; at the most 
active period of life, he must quit the busy 
scene, and conceal himself from the world, 222 ; 
the situation, in which he abandoned the 
king, 224 ; that he either differed from his 
colleagues, or thought the administration no 
longer tenable, 224 ; that he began with 
betraying the people, and concluded with be- 
traying the king, 224; vindicates Mr Vaughan, 
as a much injured man, 225 ; takes his leave of 
the duke of Grafton, 225, 226 ; to the printer 
of the Public Advertiser, 226 ; the king's 
answer to the city remonstrance considered, 
226 — 229 ; the grievances of the people aggra- 
vated by insults, 229 ; the city of London have 
set an example, worthy to be followed by the 
whole kingdom, 230 ; if any part of the repre- 
sentative body be not chosen by the people, 
that part vitiates and corrupts the whole, 230 ; 
instead of answering the city's petition, his 
Majesty pronounces his own panegyric, 230, 
231 ; whether the remonstrance be or be not 
injurious to parliament, is tlie very question 
between parliament and the people, 231 ; the 
city of London has not desired the king to 
assume a power placed in other hands, 232 ; 
they call upon him to make use of his lawful 
prerogative, 232 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 233 ; that the king's answer to the 
citj'- of London is only the sentiment of the 
minister, 233 ; the consequences of which, how- 
ever, materially affect his JMajesty's honour, 
233 ; who should never appear but in an 
amiable light to his subjects, 233 ; an appeal 
to his Majesty's judgment, 235 ; addresses 
from parliament, considered as a fashionable 
unmeaning formality, 235 ; their consequences 
considered, when supposed to mean what they 
profess, 235, 236 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 236 ; while parliament was sitting, 
it would have been neither safe nor regular to 
have offered any opinion on their proceedings, 

236 ; we had a right to expect something from 
their prudence, and something from their fears, 

237 ; the majority of the House of Lords join 
with the other House, 238 ; they would hardly 



INDEX. 



S^7 



have yielded so much to the other House, 
without the certainty of a compensation, 239 ; 
they did not vindicate their own dignity when 
grossly attacked, 239 ; strictures on the busi- 
ness of the session after voting the supplies, 240, 
et seq. ; the king's situation after proroguing 
the parliament, 241 ; to lord North, 243 ; the 
honour of rewarding Mr Luttrell's services re- 
served for his Lordship, 243 ; whom he calls 
upon to tell the country who advised the king 
to appoint colonel Luttrell adjutant-general to 
the army of Ireland, 243 ; to lord Mansfield, 
244 ; danger of writing to his Lordship, who is 
both judge and party, 244 ; a tribute paid to 
his Scotch sincerity, 245 ; anecdotes of his 
Lordship, 245, 7iote ; that his Lordship consoles 
himself for the loss of a favourite family, by 
reviving the maxims of their government, 245 ; 
his maxims of jurisprudence direct his inter- 
pretation of the law and the treatment of juries, 
246 ; that the court of King's Bench thereby 
becomes a court of equit}', 246 ; his conduct 
with regard to Bingley's affair, 247, and 7tote ; 
charges his Lordship with invading the province 
of the jury in matter of libel, 248; his Lord- 
ship's charge to the jury, in the prosecution of 
Almon and Woodfall, contradicted by the high- 
est legal authorities, 249 ; that he ordered a spe- 
cial juryman to be set aside, without any legal 
objection, 250 ; isaccused of having done great 
mischief to this councry as a minister, 250 ; to 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, 252 ; 
violence and treachery at home supported by 
treachery and submission abroad, 252 ; the 
expedition of the Spaniards against Port Eg- 
mon't, 253 ; his Majesty's ship detained in port 
above twenty days, 253 ; the king's speech, 
Nov. 1770, considered, 253; if the actual situ- 
ation of Europe be considered, when the aftair 
of Port Egmont happened, the treachery of 
the king's servants will appear in the strongest 
colours, 254 ; a most favourable opportunity is 
lost, 255 ; the aftair of Port Egmont affords 
materials for a fable, 255 ; to theprinter of the 
Public Advertiser, 259 ; we have nothing to 
apprehend from prerogative, but much from 
undue influence, 261 ; our political climate, se- 
verely altered, 261 ; the nature and origin of 
privileges traced and considered, 262, et seq. ; 
to the duke of Grafton, 272 ; that the king 
would in vain have looked round the kingdom 
for a character so consummate as that of his 
Grace, 272 ; that his Grace did not neglect 
the magistrate while he flattered the man, 273 ; 
that his Grace has abundance of other merit, to 
recommend him to the sovereign, 273 ; to the 
duke of Grafton, 274 ; that he never formed a 
friendship, that did not prove fatal to the ob- 
ject of it, 274 ; his Grace's services to his royal 
master have been faithfully recorded, 275 ; 
his Grace's re-appointment to a seatin the 
cabinet, how announced to the public, 275 ; 
tliat his Grace is the pillou% upon which he 
is determined to rest all his resentments, 276 ; 
to the Rev. Mr Home, 279 ; concludes from 
Mr Home's own letters, that he sold himself to 
the ministry, 279 ; censures his attack on Mr 



Wilkes, 279 ; and his improper introduction of 
a lady's name into the papers, 283 ; to the 
printer of the Public Advertiser, 292 ; if any 
coarse expressions have escaped Junius, he 
agrees that they are unfit for his pen, but they 
may not have been improperly applied, 292 ; 
that, upon Mr Home's terms, there is no 
danger in being a patriot, 293 ; by what gentle 
degreeshis persecuting spirit has been softened 
into moderation, 294 ; causes of Junius's de- 
testation of the duke of Grafton, 204 ; a fare- 
well letter to Junius from Mr Home, 297 ; 
Junius to the duke of Grafton, 290 ; that his 
Grace has done as much mischief to the com- 
munity as Cromwell would have done, if he 
had been a coward, 298 ; the enormous ex- 
cesses, through which court influence has safely 
conducted his Grace, without a ray of real 
understanding, 298 ; it is like the universal 
passport of our ambassodor, 298 ; his Majesty 
in want of money, and the nav\^ in want of 
timber, 299 ; a warrant issued for cutting down 
trees in Whittlebur}^ forest, of which his Grace 
is hereditary ranger, 299 ; his Grace's beha- 
viour on this occasion, 300 ; the oaks keep their 
ground, and the king is defrauded, 300 ; to the 
livery of London, 304 ; the election of a chief 
magistrate, a point in which every member of 
the community is interested, 304 ; that the 
question, to those who mean fairly to the 
liberties of the people, lies in a narrow com- 
pass, 304 ; Mr Nash's character, as a public 
man and a magistrate, 304, 305 ; he cannot 
alter his conduct without confessing that he 
never acted on principle of any kind, 305 ; to 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, 305 ; Ju- 
nius laments the unhappy differences which 
have arisen among the friends of the people, 
305 ; the insidious partisan, who foments the 
disorder, sees the fruit of his dishonest industry 
ripen beyond his hopes, 305 ; that Mr Wilkes 
has no resource but in the public favour, 306 ; 
that Mr Alderman Sawbridge has evinced that 
republican firmness which the times require, 
307 ; the right of pressing seamen founded 
originally upon a necessity that supersedes all 
argument, 307 ; the designs and conduct of 
lord JNIansfield further investigated, 308, et 
seq. ; patriotism is capable of being improved 
by transplanting, 309 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 321 ; Junius vindicates 
himself from the charge of misrepresentations, 
321, 322 ; to lord Mansfield, 322 ; charges his 
Lordship with doing an illegal act in bailing 
Eyre, 323 ; Junius engages to make good this 
charge, 323 ; to the duke of Grafton, 323 ; on 
the miserable depression of the duke, when 
almost every man in the kingdom was exulting 
at sir James Lowther's defeat, 323, 324 ; that 
he violates his own rules of decorum, when he 
does not insult the man whom he has betray- 
ed, 324 ; to lord Mansfield, 325 ; that the su- 
perior power of bailing for felony, in the court 
of King's Bench, has only the negative assent 
of the legislature, 326 ; that a person, posi- 
tively charged with feloniously stealing, and 
taken with the stolen goods upon him, is not 



Si8 



INDEX. 



bailable, 327 ; the law stated, 327 ; the several 
statutes relative to bail, stated in due order, 
328, et seq. ; the law as stated, applied to the 
case of John Eyre, who was committed for 
felony, 334; to the right hon. lord Camden, 
337 ; Junius calls on his Lordship to stand 
forth in defence of the laws of his country, 337; 
extract of a letter from Junius to Mr Wilkes, 
338 ; Junius renounces his hostility to lord 
Chatham, 364, and note ; apparent incon- 
sistencies in his conduct accounted for, 371, 
note; to the printer of the Public Adver- 
tiser, 422 ; the treatment of Mr Wilkes 
considered, in the affair of general war- 
rants, 422, 423 ; to the same, 425 ; on the 
monody written on his supposed death, 425, 
426 ; exaggerated character of Junius by 
Silurus, 426, note ; character of, and conjec- 
tures on, Junius, by Junia, 430, 431 ; Junius's 
reply to her, 431 ; Junius's attack on lord 
Mansfield's doctrine, in the Grosvenor cause, 
defended, 461. 

References to other letters of Junius will be 
found in this index under the following arti- 
cles, viz. A. B., Amictis Cjirice, Anonyuious 
Letters,A nti-Belial,A nti-Fox,Anti-Sejanus, 
Anti-Van-Teague , Atticus, Atigur, Bifrons, 
Brutus, C, Corrector, Correggio, Crito, Ciim- 
briensis, Domitian, Downright, Henricus, 
J2i7iiper, L. L., M7iemo7i, Moderator, Mode- 
rattis, Nemesis, Phalaris, Philo Junius, Tell- 
Truth, Teinporum Felicitas, Testiculus, Ti- 
tles, Valerian, Veteran, X. X., Y. Z. 

Jury, examination of lord Mansfield's charge to, 
on the trial of Mr Woodfall, 116, et seq. ; their 
functions defined, 124, 125 ; juries have the 
full power of judging both of the law and the 
fact, 248, note. 

Ju7iiper''s letter, in vindication of Junius, 495. 

Jzistice, impartial administration of, the firmest 
security of a government, 132 ; letter from, 
vindicating the duke of Grafton, 211, notes. 

Ke7t7iedys (Matthew and Patrick), condemned 
for murder, but pardoned at the intercession 
of a prostitute, 242, and 7iote. 

Ki7ig, the power of King, Lords, and Commons, 
proved not to \>&^n arbitrary -^ovftx, 113, and 
7iote ; the maxim, ' t/tat the ki7tg ca7t do 7to 
■wrojtg,' examined, 125, 126, 214 ; mismanage- 
ment of his affairs in the House of Commons, 
130 ; favourable auspices with which he com- 
menced his reign, 162 ; Junius's letter to him, 
213, et seq. ; extract from his Majesty's speech, 
Nov. 13, 1760, 214, 7iote ; extract of his speech 
in 1767, 358, 7iotc ; fictitious discussion of, 358, 
et seq. ; answers of, to the addresses and re- 
monstrances of parliament, and of the city of 
London, 227, 228, 229, 7iote ; his speech, Nov. 
1770, considered, 253 ; particulars of his Ma- 
jesty's dispute with the city, 443, 444, note; 
remarks thereon by Moderatus, 443 — 445 ; 
the king cannot change the law by his pro- 
clamation, 444 ; conversation of his Majesty 
with lord Barrington, 499. 

L. L., letter of, to the printer of the Public Ad- 



vertiser, 388 ; on sir Jeffery Amherst's dis- 
mission from his government, 388. 

La7td Tax Act, -vsliAiiY of, questioned by Mr 
Alderman Townshend, 446, note ; abstract of 
the trial of this question, 446, 447, 7iote. 

Laws of England grow out of the constitution, 
112. 

Lee (General), examination of his claims to the 
authorship of Junius's letters, 40, et seq. ; 
proved 7iot to have written them, 43.; 

Legge (Mr), dismissed from office, for party pur- 
poses, 215, 7wte. 

Legislature, not vested with arbitrary power, 
113, and note. 

Libel, vilifying the House of Commons or its 
members, punishable as severely in the King's 
Bench as one upon the king, 264. 

Liberty of the press, the palladium of British 
rights, 113, 114 ; strictures on, 115 — 119 ; re- 
marks on, by De Lolme, 127. 

Lice7itio7is7tess oi t\iG press, charge of, examined, 
116 — 119. 

Lig07tier (Lord), the command of the army taken 
from him against his inclination, 137. 

Livery of Lo7ido7i, letter to, on the choice of a 
chief magistrate, 304, 305. 

Lloyd (Charles), proof that he was not the 
writer of the letters of Junius, 33. 

Londo7t (City of), petition on the embezzlement 
of public treasure, 58, 59, note; reply thereto 
by lord Holland, 59 ; has given an example in 
what manner a king of this country should be 
addressed, 168, 227, et stq., 710 te ; addresses of, 
considered, 226, 227, 7iote ; copies of the ad- 
dresses, remonstrances, and petitions to the 
king, 227 — 229, 7iote ; particulars of their dis- 
pute with the king, 443, 444, 7iote ; remarks 
thereon, 443 — 445 ; strictures on their remon- 
strance, 449, 450 ; vote of thanks to lord Chat- 
ham, for his declaration in favour of short 
parliaments, 290, 291, 7tote. 

Lords and Commons, powers of, defined, 113. 

Lords (House of), order all strangers to be ex- 
cluded, 454. 

Lottery, the worst possible way of raising 
money, 130. 

Loyalty, nature of, defined, 128. 

Z^wi'/z^r (Sir James), his interest in the county 
of Cumberland ruined by the duke of Grafton, 
151 ; his litigious spirit displayed in the county 
of Cumberland, 300, 301, 7iote ; nonsuited in 
his cause against the duke of Portland, 303, 
note; letters relative to his gfant, 365, 367, 

369- 
Liccizis, letter of, to the prmtcr of the Public 
Advertiser, 391 ; lord Hillsborough's conduct 
towards sir J. Amherst considered, 391 ; letter 
to his Lordship on the same subject, 396, 397 ; 
to lord Hillsborough, 399; his Lordship's nego- 
tiation with sir J. Amherst examined, 399 — 
401 ; reply of Cleophas, 403, 404 ; to the earl of 
Hillsborough, in refutation of Cleophas, 404 — 
406 ; the same subject continued, 406 — 408 ; 
to the same, 408 ; there is no surer sign of a 
weak head, than a settled depravity of heart, 
408 ; strictures on his Lordship's system of 
morals, 409 ; his Lordship's advice to tho 



INDEX. 



S19 



governors of the colonies considered, 408, 409 : 
list of epithets applied by his Lordship to 
Lucius, 410 ; Lucius to the earl of Hills- 
borough, 410 ; reply to his Lordship's letter in 
the Gazetteer, 411. 

Luttrell yix], successfully patronized by the 
duke of Grafton, 156 ; his arbitrary appoint- 
ment a violation of the constitution, 167; the 
question arising from Air Wilkes's expulsion, 
and ]\Ir L.'s appointment, attempted to be 
stated with justice and precision, 169, et seq. ; 
lord Camden's manly disapprobation of the 
proceedings of the House of Commons con- 
cerning him, 224, note; further observations 
on his being seated in parliament to the ex- 
clusion of 2ilr Wilkes, 450 ; strictures on his 
appointment to be adjutant-general of Ireland, 
243, and note ; he resigns that office, 244, note. 

Lyn7t, burgesses of, re-elect Mr Walpole, after 
being expelled, 171. 

Mackenzie (Mr Stuart), biographical notice of, 
192. 

MacpJierson (Sir John), monody on Junius, 425, 
426, note. 

Macleane (Mr L.), remarks on, 471 ; account of, 
471, note. 

MacQuiy-k (Edward), charged with murder at 
the Middlesex election, 148, note; his Ma- 
jesty's warrant for pardoning him, 149, note; 
the pardoning of him much censured, 149 ; 
the reasons assigned for it examined and re- 
futed, 149, et seq. ; the duke of Grafton's con- 
duct in this affair considered by Simplex, 427, 
428. 

Malo7ie 'Mr\ examination of his evidence to 
prove that i\Ir Hamilton did not write Junius's 
letters, 38, 39. 

Manilla ransom dishonourably given up, 136 ; 
notice of, 136, note. 

Mattsjield (Lord), anecdotes of, 245, notes; 
■ strictures on his charge to the jury in the case 
of libels, 308, et seq. ; his charge to the jury 
on the trial of Mr Woodfall for publishing the 
letters of Junius, 117, 118, ?iote ; queries pro- 
posed to him in the House of Lords thereupon 
by lord Camden, 118, note; his extraordinary 
dictum in giving the opinion of the court of 
King's Bench, 122, 123, note; extract from his 
eloquent speech on reversal of Mr Wilkes's 
outlawry, 154, note; speech on the prosecu- 
tion of Mr Vaughan, 212, note ; Junius pays a 
tribute to his Scotch sinceritj', 245 ; that his 
Lordship had some attachments, which he took 
every opportunity to acknowledge, 245 ; is 
charged with reviving the maxims of govern- 
ment of his favourite familj', 245 ; and with 
following a uniform plan of enlarging the 
power of the crown at the subjects' expense, 
245 ; that he labours to contract the power of 
the jurj', or to mislead their judgment, 246 ; 
that, instead of positive rules which should de- 
termine a court, he has introduced his own 
unsettled notions of equity, 246 ; his conduct 
in regard to Bingley's confinement and release, 
247 ; his charge to the jury contradicts the 
highest egal authorities, 248 — 250; is remind- 



ed of the name of Benson, 250 ; charged with 
doing much mischief to this country as a 
minister, 250 ; and with supporting a ministry 
which he knew to be odious, and spoke of 
sometimes with contempt, 251 ; his suspicious 
applause of lord Chatham, 314, et seq. ; his 
reasons for challenging a juryman, 315 ; is de- 
defended by solicitor-general Thurlow, 315, 
note; is accused of endeavouring to screen the 
king's brother, 316 ; and of introducing new 
practices into the court of King's Bench, 316 ; 
is charged by Junius with bailing a man not 
bailable by the law of the land, 325 ; lord 
Camden accepts his challenge to discuss the 
doctrine laid down by the King's Bench in 
Woodfall's case, 455 ; lord Mansfield refuses 
.to answer his Lordship, 456 ; his conduct on 
Mr Woodfall's trial defended by Nerva, 456, 
457, ftotes ; attacked by Phalaris, 456 — 458; 
report of his Lordship's decision in the case of 
Meares and Shepley against Ansell, 79, 7iote. 

Measures and not men, the common cant of 
affected moderation, 196, iiote ; a quotation 
from Pope on this subject, 196, note. 

Meredith 1 Sir William , vindicated from some 
aspersions thrown out against him, in a pamph- 
let written in defence of sir William Black- 
stone, 176, et seq. 

Messala, letter of, vindicating the duke of 
Grafton's conduct towards the duke of Rut- 

' land, 434, 435._ 

Middlesex election, petition of the freeholders of 
this county to the king, in consequence of the 
decision of the House of Commons on the 
Middlesex election, 55, note ; proceedings of 
parliament in, censured by the marquis of 
Granby, 146, note ; sherifl"s of, discharge their 
duty in returning j\Ir Wilkes, 156 ; account of 
his successive re-elections for this county, 156, 
7iote : the arbitrary election of Mr Luttrell a 
violation of the constitution, 167 ; this election 
considered, 172 — 174, and notes, 446, 447. 

Mitiistry, arrangement of, in 1769, 128, note. 

Ministers. To be acquainted with their merit 
it is sufficient to observe the condition of the 
people, 128 ; their misconduct is the cause of 
the sudden and extraordinary'- change within 
these few years in Great Britain, 129 ; the 
conduct and character of ministers the real 
cause of national calamities, 136 ; a minister 
in this country who is determined to do wrong 
must be a man of abilities and courage, 363 ; 
ministers are called upon to answer for the 
excesses attendant on Mr Wilkes's election, 
372, et seq. ; their conduct towards him fully 
considered, 371 — 373 ; they produce him once 
more on the stage in order to keep lord Bute 
in order, 373 ; duplicity their predominant 
virtue, 376 ; illustrated in their conduct to- 
wards the duke of Portland, 376, 377 ; their 
endeavours to make us happy have been 
equally indefatigable and ingenious, 378 ; are 
charged by Valerius with violating the rights 
of long and undisputed possession, for the pur- 
poses of undue influence at an election, and of 
paying a base court to a clandestine and dan- 
gerous power, 379 ; the line of conduct stated 



520 



INDEX. 



which they ought to have pursued in the duke 
of Portland's case, 380 ; their conduct towards 
sir J. Amherst considered, 391, 394, 395 ; do 
not always tell the truth even to their most 
intimate friends, 419. 

M7ie7no7i, letters of, to the printerof the Public 
Advertiser, 365 ; that the people of England 
are by nature phlegmatic, 365 ; the principle 
that no length of possession secures against 
the claim of the crown controverted, 366 ; to 
the printer of the Public' Advertiser, 367 ; the 
maxim nulhnn temptcs ocacrrit regi, further 
discussed, 367, etseq. 

Moderator, letter of, to the printer of the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, 349 ; strictures on the contest 
between Philo Veritatis and No Ghost, on lord 
Townshend's bravery, 349 — 351. 

Moderatus, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Ad\ertiser, 443; strictures on the king's dis- 
pute with the city of London, 443, 444, note. 

Modestus, charges Junius with absurdity in his 
writings, 202 ; cannot distinguish between a 
sarcasm and a contradiction, 202 ; is charged 
with misquoting what Junius says of con- 
science, and making the sentence ridiculous by 
making it his own, 203 ; who was the real 
writer under the signature of Modestus, 202, 
note; remarks on his contest with Junius, 437, 

438 ; another letter of Modestus to Junius, 

439 ; strictures on the conduct of captains 
Garth and Dodd, 439, 440. 

Monody on Junius, 425, 426, note. 
Montesquieu, maxim of, 147, note. 
Moore (Sir John), has a pension of £s'^ per ann., 

162, and note : query concerning it, 163. 
Morris (Mr), speech of, on the arrest of printers 

for printing the debates in parliament, 475, 

476, note. 
Micsgrave (Dr), firmness and integrity of, before 

the House of Commons, 239, and note. 

Nash (Mr), state of the poll at his election, 90, 
note ; considerations on his character as a 
magistrate, and as a public man, 304, and 
fiote. 

Nation, when its safety is at stake, suspicion is 
a sufficient ground for enquiry, 128. 

Navy, woeful state of, in 1771, 299, and note. 

Nemesis, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 505; memoirs of lord Barrington, 
505. 

Nerva, letter of, to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 456, note : vindicates lord Mansfield's 
conduct in the House of Lords, 456, 457, note. 

Newbery' s &^\t\orv of Junius, remarkson, 57. _ 

Noblemen (young), advantage of their entering 
into the army, 142. 

North (Lord), his remarks on the letters of 
Junius, 2, 7tote ; letter to, on the choice of his 
friends, and ministerial conduct, 73, note; 
doubts as to his abilities as chancellor of the 
Exchequer, 129 ; is admonished to think 
seriously before he increases the public debt, 
130; the palm of ministerial firmness trans- 
ferred to him, 226 ; description of his person, 
234, note ; had the means of reducing the four 
per cents at once, 241 ; but loses the oppor- 



tunity, 241, and note; the honour of reward- 
ing colonel Luttrell's services reserved for him, 
243 ; is called upon by Junius to tell who 
advised his Majesty to appoint colonel Lut- 
trell adjutant-general of Ireland, S43 ; he shall 
not have time to new-model the Irish army, 
244 ; Lord North's defence of himself relative 
to sir Wm. Lowther's grant, 368, note : poli- 
tical portrait of him, 416. 

Northington (Lord Chancellor), portrait of, by 
Junius, 348. 

Noye (Mr Attorney-General), his opinion of the 
privilege of the House of Commons to commit 
for contempt, 270. 

NitUujn tejnpus ocncrrit regi. This maxim 
examined and exposed, 367, et seq. ; investi- 
gated by C. (Junius), 373 ; it could only be 
true under the feudal government, 374. 

Old Noll, destined to be the ruin of the house of 
Stuart, 163 ; grants that Corsica has been 
sacrificed to the French, 165 ; a nick-name of 
Oliver Cromwell, 164, note. 

Onslow (Mr), threatens to prosecute Mr Wood- 
fall for printing a libel on his character, 58 ; 
correspondence of, on this subject, 62, et seq.; 
letter to him by Mr Home, 63, 64 ; whom he 
sues, but is nonsuited, 65, note ; Junius's/r/- 
vate opinion of him, 66 ; letters to Mr Wilkes, 
435. 43'5> and note. 

Outlawry of Mr Wilkes, extract from lord 
Mansfield's speech on reversing it, 154, 155, 
7iotes. 

Parliaments, view of the dissolution and re-as- 
embling of, during the present reign, 113, note ; 
long parliaments the foundation of the undue 
influence of the crown, 114; the privilege of 
parliaments considered, 174 ; addresses from 
parliament considered as a fashionable un- 
meaning formalitj', 235 ; their consequences 
considered when they mean what they profess, 
235, 236 ; fictitious account of the debates in 
parliament, in 1767, 356, et seq. 

Parsons (Ann), the duke of Grafton's mistress, 
155, 7tote; led into public by him, and placed 
at the head of his table, 162 ; handed through 
the Opera-house in presence of the queen, 
by the first lord of the Treasury, 164 ; base 
conduct of the duke of Grafton towards her, 
157, 7iote. 

Parties, union of, not productive of the benefit 
expected therefrom, 129 ; plan for conciliating, 
recommended by sir William Draper, 146, 
7iote. 

People. — The submission of a -free people, a 
compliance with laws enacted by themselves, 
128 ; In reading the history of, how we become 
interested In their cause, 128 ; the Impartial 
administration of justice, the firmest bond to 
secure their submission, and to engage their 
affections to government, 132. 

Percy (Earl), placed at the head of a regiment, 
141 ; was ald-de-camp to the king, and had 
rank of colonel, before he had a regiment, 
144. 

Phalaris, letter of, to the printer of the Public 



INDEX. 



521 



Advertiser, 456 ; replies to Nerva, against lord 
Mansfield's conduct in INIr Woodfall's affair, 
456 — 45S ; a card from Phalaris, on Mr Jus- 
tice's amours with lady Williams, 460. 
Philo Junius to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 162 ; that the duke of Grafton's 
friends, in the contest with Junius, are re- 
duced to the general charge of scurrility and 
falsehood, 162 ; the truth of Junius's facts of 
importance to the public, 162 ; a review of 
them, as stated in Letter XII., 162, 163 ; and 
the letter to the printer of the Public Adver- 
tiser, 163 ; that the duke of Grafton's whole 
course of life is a strange endeavour to recon- 
cile contradiction, 163; a violation of public 
decorum should never be forgiven, 164 ; re- 
marks on the duke's conduct in this respect, 
164 ; that his Grace always has some excel- 
lent reasons for deserting his friends, 165 ; 
ironical notice of lord Sandwich, 165, and note; 
to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 172 ; 
the objections of G. A. to Junius's stale of the 
question concerning the JMiddlesex election, 
considered, 172, et seq. ; vindicates Junius's 
reasoning on Mr Walpole's case, 183, 184, 
note ; charges the ministry with introducing a 
new system of political logic, which he calls 
argument against fact, 186 ; that sir William 
Blackstone sometimes contradicts the ministry 
as well as himself, 187 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 202 ; he is assured that 
Junius will never descend to a dispute with 
such a writer as Llodestus, 202 ; examination 
of the proofs brought to support the charge of 
Junius being an Irishman, 202, 203 ; that Mo- 
destus misquotes what Junius says of con- 
science, and makes the sentence ridiculous by 
making it his own, 203 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 207 ; remarks on Junius's 
Letter XXX. , 207 — 209 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 257 ; that Anti -Junius 
triumphs in having, as he supposes, cut off an 
outpost of Junius, 258 ; that Junius does not 
speak of the Spanish nation, but the Spanish 
court, as the natural enemies of England, 258 ; 
if it were not for the respect he bears the min- 
ister, he could name a man who, without one 
grain of understanding, can do half as much as 
Oliver Cromwell, 259 ; as to a secret system 
in the closet, that this can only be determined 
by appearances, 259 ; the queries put by Anti- 
Junius can only be answered by the ministry, 
258 ; to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 
265; that those who object to detached parts 
of Junius's last letter, either do not mean 
fairly, or have not considered the scope of his 
argument, 265, 266 ; that Junius does not ex- 
pect a dissolution of parliament will destroy 
corruption, but will be a terror and check to 
their successors, 266 ; to the printer of the 
Public Advertiser, 266 ; on Junius's construc- 
tion of the vote declaring Mr Walpole's inca- 
pacity, 260 ; extract from lord Somers, in 
support of this construction, 266 ; if Junius's 
construction be admitted, the advocates of the 
House of Commons must be reduced to the 
necessity of maintaining a gross absurdity, 



267 ; that the House did not foresee one effect 
resulting from their vote on the Middlesex 
election, 269 ; to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 269 ; on the opinions of Noj'e and 
Coke, on the jurisdiction of the House of 
Commons, 270 ; to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 270 ; the resolutions and conduct 
of the House further considered, 270, 271 ; to 
the printer of the Public Advertiser, 296 ; the 
vanity and impiety of Junius are become the 
perpetual topics of abuse, 296 ; the proofs of 
this charge considered, 296 ; and refuted, 297 ; 
to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 310 ; 
that Junius's inclination leads him to treat lord 
Camden with particular respect, 310 ; that lord 
Camden overshot himself in asserting the pro- 
clamation against exporting corn to be legal, 
311 ; to Zeno, 312 ; the sophistry of his letter 
in defence of lord Mansfield, is adapted to the 
character he defends, 312, 313 ; strictures on 
lord Mansfield's doctrines, 315 — 317 ; that his 
Lordship incessantly laboured to introduce 
new modes of proceeding into the court of 
King's Bench, 316 ; to an Advocate in the 
cause of the people, 317 ; the difference be- 
tween general warrants and press-warrants, 
stated and explained, 318. 

Philo Veritatis, extract of his letter, recording 
the bravery of lord Townshend, 349, note. 

Poetikastos, extract of a letter from, 152, note ; 
monody of, on Junius, 425, 426, notes. 

Pomona, ironical letter from, to the duke of 
Grafton, 381. 

Pope iMr), quotation from a letter of his, to Dr 
Arbuthnot, 196, note. 

Poplicola, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 341 ; the bravest and fiercest na- 
tions have sometimes submitted to a temporary 
surrender of their liberties, in order to secure 
them, 341 ; arraigns lord Chatham's conduct, 
341 ; to the same, in reply to the strictures of 
C. D., 343—345- 

Portland (Duke of) duplicity, of ministers to him 

exposed, 376, 377 ; principal points in his case 

stated, 379 ; the conduct pointed out, which 

ministers ought to have pursued towards him, 

• 380. 

Precedents, influence of, 112, 

Prerogative (ro^^al), account of the outrageous 
attempt made to enlarge it by the ministr3', 
299, 300, note ; the establishment of the several 
high offices of state, a check to the prerogative 
of the crown, 364. 

Press, liberty of, the palladium of British liberty, 
113; strictures on, 115 — 120; remarks on, by 
De Lolme, 127 ; must always prove formidable 
to an arbitrary government, 480 ; remarks on, 
480 — 482. 

Pressing seamen, the right of, founded origin- 
ally on a necessity, which supersedes all argu- 
ment, 307 ; queries and replies thereto, on the 
legality of this practice, 308, note. 

Press-iuarrants, and general %varrants, differ- 
ence between, 318. 

Pri7iters, proceedings against, for reporting the 
debates in parliament, and strictures thereon, 
471 — 473, and note, 479, et seq. and notes. 



522 



INDEX. 



Privileges, nature and origin of, investigated, 
262, et seq., 479, et seq. 

Protest, spirited, against the proceedings rela- 
tive to the Falkland's Isles, 467, 468, notes. 

Piiblijis, letter of, in defence of sir William 
Blackstone, 178, Jtotes. 

Rig-by (Mr), account of, 165, note. 

Riots, on account of Mr Wilkes, notice of, 153, 
note ; account of one in St George's Fields, 
381, note ; remarks on the letter of thanks to 
the commanding officer of the troops employ- 
ed on that occasion, 380, 381 ; copy of the 
letter itself, 380, 381, note ; strictures on lord 
Barrington's conduct, 500. 

Roberts (John), not the author of Junius's Letters, 
33- 

Robvisofi (Jack), curious letter of, on the ap- 
pointment of sheriffs, 275, note, 

Roch/ord {Lord), estimate of his talents, 131, 418, 
419 ; succeeds to the foreign department, 274, 
note. 

Rosenhagen (Rev. Mr), proofs that he was 7iot 
the author of Junius's Letters, 40. 

Sackville (Lord George), at one period suspect- 
ed to be the author of Junius's Letters, 52, 
S3 ; a strong reason for thinking the suspicion 
groundless, 53. 

Safety, national, when at stake, suspicion is a 
sufficient ground for enquiry, 128. 

Sandwich (Lord), spotless morality of, 165, and 
7iote ; remarks on his return to office, 459, 460, 
462. 

Sawbridge (Mr), remarks of Junius on his con- 
nexion with Mr Wilkes, 87, et seq.; has shown 
himself possessed of that republican firmness 
which the times require, 307. 

Sccevolas letter to Junius, explaining lord Cam- 
den's opinion, 310, 311, tiote ; he is chastised 
by Junius, 79. 

Scotch i7iflzie7ice, remarks on, 125, 

Scotuc, ironical letter of, to lord Barrington, on 
his abuse of the Scotch character, 503, 504. 

Scrictator, extracts of his letters in vindication of 
lord Hillsborough, 407, 408, notes. 

Seame7i, the right of pressing, founded originally 
on a necessity, which supersedes all argument, 
307 ; queries and answers on the legality of 
this right, 308, note. 

Shelburne (Lord), applied to, in regard to the 
Manilla ransom, 136, note ; his conduct, with 
respect to Corsica, disavowed by ministers, 
161, and note ; portrait of, 348; account of his 
political life, 417, 

Sheriffs of Middlesex discharged their duty in 
returning Mr Wilkes, 156, and note; Mr 
Home unsuccessful in support of the ministe- 
rial nomination of sheriffs, 276. 

Silurus, character of Junius by him, 426, note. 

Smythe (Mr Baron), censured by Junius, 336 ; 
state of the case, and vindication of him by 
Mr Dunning, 336, notes. 

Soiners (Lord;, extract from his tract on the rights 
of the people, 266. 

Sj>ain, on the preparations for war with that 
country, 71, and note ; dishonourable conduct 



of the government of, concerning the Manilla 
ransom, 136, note. 

Sta7nJ>Act made and repealed, 130; effect of 
passing it on the colonies, 160, note. 

State, the ruin or prosperity of, depends on the 
administratton of its government, 128 ; the 
improper bestowment of its principal offices, 
the source of every mischief, 129. 

Suffolk (Earl of), letter to, on his conduct, 483 ; 
his Lordship the first who has avowed himself 
to act without principle, 486 ; strictures on his 
political tergiversation, 487 — 489 ; his Lord- 
ship's resignation a pledge of his delicacy, if 
not of his integrity, 489 ; the situation into 
which he brought himself considered, 490. 

Supre7Jie, import of the word explained, 113. 

Stispicion is a proper ground for enquiry when 
the national safety is at stake, 128. 

Taylor (John), tried for murder, 336, note ; his 
case stated, 336, notes. 

Tell-Truth, letter of, on Mr Bradshaw's ap- 
pointment as one of the lords of the Ad- 
miralty, 504, 505. 

Temporicm Felicitas, letter of, to the printer of 
the Public Advertiser, 413 ; ironical encomium 
on lord Hillsborough's conduct, 413. 

Testis, letter of, on lord Barrington's conduct as 
secretary at war, 450, 451 ; reply to, by Testi- 
czdtis, 451, 452. 

Titus, letter of, to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 139, 7tote; strictures on Junius, 140, 
note; vindicates the character of lord Granby 
as a man, a soldier, and as a general, 140, 141, 
note. 

Totechet (Mr), in his most prosperous fortune, 
the same man as at present, 276. 

Towns/tend 1 Mr Alderman), complains that the 
public gratitude has not been equal to his de- 
serts, 307 ; questions the legality of the land- 
tax act, 446, note ; abstract of the trial of this 
question, 446, 447, note. 

Townshend (Hon. Charles), chancellor of the 
Exchequer, 468 ; character of, 469. 

To%vnshe7id (Lord), lord -lieutenant of Ireland, 
346, note ; remarks on his character and con- 
duct, 346, 347 ; said to excel in portrait paint- 
ing, 347 ; outlines of subjects for his pencil 
sketched by Correggio (Junius), 347 — 349; 
anecdote of his intrepidity, 349, 7tote ; remarks 
of Moderatus on the dispute relative to this 
anecdote, 349 — 351. 

To'W7Lshen(i (T.), joint paymaster, portrait of, 
348. 

Trial of Mr Woodfall for publishmg the letter 
of Junius to the king, abstract of, 117— 123, 
note ; further touched upon, 213, note. 

Vale7iti7iia7i III., character of, 491. 

Valeriics, letter of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 378 ; that ministers have not an- 
swered the accusation laid against them in 
' the duke of Portland's case,' 379 ; they are 
charged with violating the rights of possession 
for the purposes of undue influence at an 
election, and of paying a base court to a clan- 
destine and dangerous power, 379 ; the chief 



INDEX. 



523 



points of his Grace's case stated, 379, 380 ; 
they ought, officially, to have seen the right of 
the crown to make the grant to sir James 
Lowther defended, and the duke of Portland's 
title examined, 380 ; to the printer of the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, 393 ; the conduct of ministers 
in dismissing sir J. Amherst from the govern- 
ment of Virginia considered, 394, 3q5. 

Vaiighaii (Mr), sends proposals to the duke of 
Grafton, 209, 210 ; state of the fact, 210, note ; 
his offer a high misdemeanour, 212 ; prosecuted 
in the court of King's Bench, 212, note ; the 
prosecution dropped, and why, 213, note; 
vindicated by Junius as a much injured man, 
225. 

Veteran, letters of, to lord Barrington, 496 ; on 
his lordship's appointment of a deputy-secre- 
tary, 496 ; charges lord B. with ruining 
general Fowke, 498, and note ; examines his 
Lordship's political tergiversations, 499 ; on his 
changes in the war-office, 499 ; his conduct in 
the affair of St George's Fields considered, 
500 ; censures his nicknaming of general Har- 
vey, 500 ; estimates his Lordship's abilities, 
502 : further remarks on his Lordship's unpre- 
cedented changes in the war-office, 503. 

Virginia, the government of, taken from sir J. 
Amherst, 388 ; this measure considered, 388, 
391. 394- 

Wales (Princess Dowager of), her influence with 
the king examined and exposed, 462, et seq.; 
the deplorable condition of the country attri- 
buted to her, 463 : by her management a war 
is certain instead of being avoided, 465. 

Walpole (Mr), expelled from the House of Com- 
mons, 170, and 7iote ; his case supposed to be 
strictly in point to prove, that expulsion in- 
capacitates from being re-elected, 171 ; state 
of his case from the journals of the House of 
Commons, 170, 171, 710 1 e : remarks on his case 
by sir William Blackstone, 179, et seq. ; stric- 
tures thereon by Junius, 182, et seq. ; the 
vote of expulsion, as expressed in the votes, 
183 ; strictures on its meaning and extent, 183, 
et seq. 

Westminster (Electors of), remonstrance to the 
king on the dissolution of parliament, 69, 70, 

7L0te. 

Weston (Edward), supposed to vindicate the 
duke of Grafton, 150, 7iote : an example of age 
without the benefit of experience, 151 ; quota- 
tion from his supposed pamphlet, with re- 
marks, 153 ; denies that he was the author, 
153, 7iote; letters to him by Crito, 152, 153, 
note. 

Wey}>ioictk (Lord), appointed one of the secre- 
taries of state, 131 ; estimate of his talents, 
131 ; resigns his office, 274, note. 

Whipcord's letter to Mr Home, 278, note. 

Whitefoord (Mr Caleb), author of the letter 
signed Jimia, 431, note. 

Whittlebury Forest, the duke of Grafton hered- 
itary ranger of, 299 ; the right to the timber 
claimed by his Grace, 300 ; the story of the 
oaks refuted by Philalethes, 303, 304, 7iote. 

Wilkes (Mr), the conclusion of a letter of his to 



Mr Home, 74, 7iote ; letter of, on Mr Garrlck's 
performing the character of Hastings, 75, 76, 
note ; private letters of Junius to him, 87, et 
seq. ; Junius assures him of his support, 87 ; 
his connexion with Mr Sawbridge considered, 
87, et seq. ; a plan proposed for reconciling 
them, 90 ; the conduct of the supporters of 
the Bill of Rights censured, 90 — 93 ; exam- 
ination of the articles of their declaration, 93 — 
97 ; Mr Wilkes's vindication of his conduct, 
97 — 100 ; to Junius, on the reading of his 
second letter before the Bill of Rights Society, 
103, 104 ; to Junius, 106 ; on his proposed 
card, excusing himself from going to St. Paul's, 
106 ; to Junius, on perusing his dedication and 
preface, 108 ; on the commitment of Eyre, 
108, 109; on the Bill of Rights Society, no; 
proved not to be author of Junius's letters, 44 ; 
prosecution of, for an obscene poem, 116, 7iote ; 
cause of his persecution by the ministry stated, 
150, 7iote ; was a candidate for London before 
he offered himself for the county of Middlesex, 
153, 7iote ; riots on his account, 153, 381, 7iotes ; 
extracts from lord Mansfield's speech on re- 
versing his outlawry, 154, 7iote ; suffered to 
appear at large, and to canvass for the city and 
county, with an outlawry hanging over him, 
153, 154 ; the question arising from his expul- 
sion, stated with justice and precision, 169, et 
seq. ; further observations thereon, 450 ; was 
not of consideration enough to excite the re- 
sentment of a king, 215 ; his address and peti- 
tion to the king, 220, 221, note : speech in the 
House of Commons, on his motion for erasing 
the votes and resolutions against him, 267 — 
269, 7iote ; detail of circumstances relating to 
that erasure, 268, 269, Jiote ; extracts from his 
letters relative to his dispute with INIr Home, 
280 — 282, 285, 7iote ; commissions Mr Thomas 
Walpole to solicit a pension for him, 289 ; re- 
ceives ;!f^2oo per annum from the duke of Port- 
land and lord Rockingham, 289, and 710 te ; 
has no resource but in the public favour, 306 ; 
view of his circumstances on his return from 
France, 371, et seq. ; disgraceful scene at the 
hustings, 372 ; he could never have been per- 
mitted to go such lengths, if all were well be- 
tween lord Bute and ministers, 373. 

Wollaston (Mr), expelled, re-elected, and ad- 
mitted into the same parliament, 184 ; the pub- 
lic left to determine whether this be a plain 
matter of fact, 186. 

Wood/all {H. S.), proofs of his strict veracity, 
50; private letters of Junius to him, relative to 
the printing and publishing his letters, 55, et 
seq. ; letters of Junius to him on his prosecu- 
tion, 69, 71 ; his expenses on this account, 69, 
note ; letters of JNIr Woodfall to Junius, 72, 
note, and 84 ; Junius gives the property of his 
letters to him, 115 ; account of the trial of, for 
publishing Junius's Letters, 117 — 123, 7iote ; 
prosecution of, for publishing Junius's letter to 
the king, 213, 7i.ote. 

Wood/all (William), extracts from his Vox 
Sejiatils of the speeches of Messrs Fox and 
Burke on the subject of the liberty of the press, 
118 — 121, note. 



524 



INDEX. 



X.X., letters of, to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, 436, 437 ; general Gansel's affair 
examined, 438, 439, 441. 

Yates (Sir Joseph), quits the court of King's 
Bench, 247 ; honourable anecdote of his in- 
tegrity, 246, 247, -iiote. 

Yorke (Charles), cut his throat, immediately 
after his appointment to the chancellorship, 
251, note. 



Y. Y., in answer to X. X., 437, 438. 

Y. Z., letter of, to the printer of the Public Ad- 
vertiser, 356 ; reports of a certain speech in 
parliament, 357 — 360, 



Zend's letter to Junius in vindication of. lord 
Mansfield, 312 — 314, note; reply to him by 
Philo-Junius, 312—317. 



THE END. 



CI.AV AND 'I'AYLOR, J'RINTKRS, lU'NGAV. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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